From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Oct 29 09:52:30 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 67A0816A4CE for ; Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:52:30 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.de [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 73ED943D41 for ; Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:52:29 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ph.schulz@gmx.de) Received: (qmail 25862 invoked by uid 65534); 29 Oct 2004 09:52:28 -0000 Received: from dsl-213-023-058-201.arcor-ip.net (EHLO [192.168.1.4]) (213.23.58.201) by mail.gmx.net (mp009) with SMTP; 29 Oct 2004 11:52:28 +0200 X-Authenticated: #1954550 Message-ID: <418212DB.1010305@gmx.de> Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:52:27 +0200 From: Phil Schulz User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040830 X-Accept-Language: de, en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ted Mittelstaedt References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.84.2.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL vs BSD Licence X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:52:30 -0000 Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: David Schwartz [mailto:davids@webmaster.com] > > Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 6:15 PM > > To: chat@freebsd.org > > Cc: TM4525@aol.com; tedm@toybox.placo.com > > Subject: RE: GPL vs BSD Licence > > > > > But then, I'm not sure (and I mean it) if there can be any piece of > > > software which, if designed for e.g. Linux, can be written w/o using any > > > system headers, libraries or whatsoever. > > > > You can do this with only moderate difficulty and moderate > > inefficiency if you want to. All you have to do is: > > > > 1) Define your own kernel interface that your proprietary > > module will use. > > > > 2) Implement this interface in a kernel module that is GPL. > > > > 3) Distribute your proprietary module such that it uses only > > your own interface. > > > > This way, your module need only use your own headers, which > > you distribute under the GPL as well as other licenses. > > The GPL and Linux don't care if you link into their system libraries, > they expect that which is why the system libraries are LGPLd > > What they care about is linking into libraries (like readline) which > they consider "their" work. If you do it, regardless of whether you > use those library headers or use a translation think like you are > outlining here, you must GPL your stuff. > > The contamination comes from linking in, even dynamically, not from > just using ascii source files. > > Ted > So I cannot use GPL'ed (vs LGPL'ed) library for software w/o placing the result under the GPL? I think I'm realizing once again that I don't fully get the GNU interpretation of "free". To me, "free" means more sth like "here, take it and do what you want w/ it, but don't bother me if you screw up" which is why I favour BSD-style licensed software. Kind regards, Phil. -- Did you know... If you play a Windows 2000 CD backwards, you hear satanic messages, but what's worse is when you play it forward.... ...it installs Windows 2000 -- Alfred Perlstein on chat@freebsd.org