'GPL encumbrance problems' (jdow)

[jdow]

From: "Mike McCarty" <mike.mccarty at sbcglobal.net>

> John Summerfied wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
>> If I employ a BSD-style licence, then you can choose to use a similar 
>> licence yourself, to use a proprietary licence and to not provide your 
>> source, or even to distribute _your_ software, even as a derived work, 
>> under the terms of the GPL.
>> 
>> If, on another hand, I grant you use under the terms of the GPL, then 
>> you are still free to write your software, but if you link your program 
>> with mine (isn't that what the headers are for?), then any distribution 
>> you do must be under the terms of the GPL, and you must (if asked) 
>> produce the source on demand.
> 
> AFAIK, this has not been tested in court, and ISTR hearing that there is
> court precedent that linking a program with a library does
> not (LGPL language notwithstanding) create a "derived work".

It does, however, mean that you must abide by the terms of use and
distribution for the library. The new terms in GPL3 make it EXTREMELY
unlikely that life will go on as before in the GPL world. There will
be no further linked in video drivers in precompiled form, for example.
Wording in GPL3 prohibits this. So either Linux does not adopt GPL3 and
refuses to include any GPL3 code or Linux dies for lack of specialized
driver support. RMS is, predictably, a silly turd.

{^_^}