From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Brown Subject: Re: git to libgit2 code relicensing Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:39:48 -0800 Message-ID: <20081115183948.GA22714@linode.davidb.org> References: <491DE6CC.6060201@op5.se> <20081114234658.GA2932@spearce.org> <20081115043051.GA21608@linode.davidb.org> <20081115050039.GC2932@spearce.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Cc: "Shawn O. Pearce" , Linus Torvalds , Andreas Ericsson , Git Mailing List To: Nicolas Pitre X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sat Nov 15 19:41:33 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1L1Q5K-0006cL-Fu for gcvg-git-2@gmane.org; Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:41:30 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752124AbYKOSkA (ORCPT ); Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:40:00 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751897AbYKOSj5 (ORCPT ); Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:39:57 -0500 Received: from linode.davidb.org ([72.14.176.16]:34731 "EHLO mail.davidb.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751888AbYKOSj4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:39:56 -0500 Received: from davidb by mail.davidb.org with local (Exim 4.69 #1 (Debian)) id 1L1Q3g-0005wl-4d; Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:39:48 -0800 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-09) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 03:04:29AM -0500, Nicolas Pitre wrote: >libgcc is a dynamic library on most modern systems these days. Yet they >routinely execute non-GPL programs. If that text intentionally excluded >the dynamic case then every non-GPL applications on such systems would >have been breaking the license for a long time. So I don't think anyone >could have substance for such a claim. Sure they can. Lack of enforcement doesn't dilute copyright like it does trademark. It may be that the gcc authors intend for it to be allowed for dynamic libraries, and therefore wouldn't sue for that usage, but that's not what they're saying in their license. What I'm saying is that if I was in a position to review the license and determine what was permitted, this license with exception does not appear to allow dynamic linking against the library. It doesn't explicitly forbid this, but it is ambiguous about it. David