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

[Timur Tabi <ttabi@interactivesi.com>]

** 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