'GPL encumbrance problems'

[Erwin Rol]

On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 07:33 -0700, David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud)
wrote:
> mailinglists at erwinrol.com wrote:

> The point of the goose/gander paragraph is simply linking to someone 
> else's code does *not* contaminate your code with their license.  Lots 
> of talk and FUD about this but linking doesn't foist a license since the 
> headers and interface (which aren't protectable elements) are all that 
> is copied.  Just because you program uses a GPL library *does not* 
> contaminate it.  As an example, I somehow doubt that an Oracle 
> implementation running on Linux makes no use of GPLed library or system 
> calls.  Same for VMware and lots of other proprietary software that runs 
> on a Linux platform.

Linking is a "technical" term and is not of importance for the license,
the more legal term is "deriving". If your work is derived from GPL work
you have to put your work under the GPL (or compatible license). 

For Oracle running on Linux, I would love to know what GPL libraries
they use? I bet the don't use any GPL library, they will use LGPL
libraries like the C-Library. The same with VMWare, I believe their GUI
is now GTK based, and GTK is licensed under the LGPL. 

For the Linux kernel, the copyright holder clearly stated that running
programs in userspace on top of the OS does not count as "deriving", and
hence those programs do not have to be GPLed simply because they can run
on Linux.

> Again, IANAL, but I find the argument that the library somehow gets 
> "included" in the program to be totally bogus as long as said library is 
> a shared object that is still normally distributed.  This argument might 
> be made for static libraries or if you literally copy and compile the 
> code but that's a different animal.

Once again you are mixing up "linking" and "deriving". The fact that a
library is a shared object or "source included" does not change the fact
that your product is derived from that library code or not. A good
indication seems to be if your program would also function without the
GPL library, and i bet it will not. 

The easiest way out is "if you don't like it, don't use it", it really
is that simple. 

- Erwin