Re: Controversy over dynamic linking -- how to end the panic

Timur Tabi (ttabi@interactivesi.com)
Thu, 21 Jun 2001 14:08:02 -0500


** Reply to message from Mike Harrold <mharrold@cas.org> on Thu, 21 Jun 2001
15:04:21 -0400 (EDT)

> Not to mention utterly unenforceable. Consider:
>
> 1) Oracle Corp. builds their database for Linux on a Linux system.
> 2) Said system comes with standard header files, which happen in this case to
> be GPL'd header files.
> 3) Oracle Corp.'s database becomes GPL.
>
> There's not a court in the civilised world that would uphold the GPL in that
> scenario.

I do believe, however, that in these cases the header files in question are
under the LGPL, which does specifically allow linking and #including in non-GPL
and non-LGPL code.

In my opinion, this whole thing would just go away (including some of
Microsoft's anti-GPL rants), if the FSF officially declared that under the GPL,
#including a GPL header file does NOT force your code to be also GPL.

-- 
Timur Tabi - ttabi@interactivesi.com
Interactive Silicon - http://www.interactivesi.com

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