From: jbuck@forney.eecs.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) Subject: Re: Recent GPL interpretations and Linux Date: 5 Jul 1993 20:30:36 GMT
mccoy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu writes:
>I hesitate the bring the GPL issue up again, but these recent events seem
>to have significant implications for the use of GPL'd libraries in Linux
>with any commercial code.
Don't panic: the Linux libraries are at most LGPL'd, not GPL'd. While
I'm not sure I buy RMS's argument, the *spirit* of the GPL is that GPL'ed
code used in a program means that the whole program must be GPL'd. This
does not affect the typical Linux application. The only case where it
would is if someone makes shared libraries corresponding to code that is
under the GPL rather than the LGPL.
>Check out gnu.misc.discuss for more discussion on this particular issue,
>but if you are considering creating a non-GPL program under any system that
>uses GPL libraries you need to definitely take a look at this.
Again, Linux does not use GPL libraries. If it turns out that there is
any code in a Linux shared library that is under the GPL rather than the
LGPL, and there is no "exception" clause (certain library files, such as
those in libgcc, have an explicit exception to GPL terms), it should be
removed (or the whole library should be documented as a GPL library for
use only with GPL programs).