From: Guillaume Marcais <guslist@...>
Date: 2003-06-30T22:44:15+09:00
Subject: Re: DBD for Oracle9i

On Sat, 2003-06-28 at 18:26, Jim Cain wrote:
> Sam Roberts wrote:
> > Quoteing kubo@jiubao.org, on Sat, Jun 28, 2003 at 04:33:35PM +0900:
> > 
> >>Jim Cain <list@jimcain.us> writes:
> >>
> >>>>Just reading this excerpt, I notice the sentence:
> >>>>
> >>>>  Such a contradiction means you cannot use both them and the Library
> >>>>  together in an executable that you distribute.
> >>>>
> >>>>My library and the Oracle client library will not be distributed 
> >>>>together. It is up to the user of my library to acquire and install the 
> >>>>Oracle client library.
> > 
> > 
> > But if your DBD is used by somebody to build an application for a client,
> > and that somebody delivers to their client ruby, the oracle DBD, their
> > ruby code, and the Oracle9i libraries (an entire working application),
> > then that somebody will have broken this licence, even though you
> > haven't (you can't, actually, because you wrote the code, you'd have to
> > prosecute yourself, and I *hope* that no court would hear the case if
> > you tried :-).
> > 
> > Sam
> > 
> 
> True, but I wonder if this statement gives you an out:
> 
>     Such a contradiction means you cannot use both them and the Library
>     together in an executable that you distribute.
> 
> They would not be distributed "together in an executable", the key word 
> being "an." They would be distributed together as *separate libraries.* 
> I suppose it would depend on the legal interpretation of "together in an 
> executable."

I am not a specialist of law by any mean. But here, just reading the
sentence, I would say that 'distribute' applies only to the executable,
not the libraries. Meaning that you cannot use the two libraries in your
software, wether they were distributed together or not.

Guillaume.

> Even so, I think an explicit exemption of that case as an amendment to 
> the LGPL terms would eliminate any ambiguity.
> 
>