From: Austin Ziegler Date: 2003-07-10T05:36:56+09:00 Subject: Re: My brief and torrid affair with Ruby. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 03:50:54 +0900, Daniel Carrera wrote: > On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 12:02:01AM +0900, Michael Campbell wrote: >> Pithy sayings don't prove much and are hardly universal. I >> understood the OPs meaning when he said the GPL was viral in >> nature. Did some HONESTLY not, or are they picking semantic nits? > I'm not sure what you mean by your question. I honestly interpret > malevolence in the term "viral". And I honestly think that the > term viral is very incorrect (even if you remove the malevolence > bit). I honestly believe that the GPL does not share any > resemblance to a virus. I'm not the questioner, but I don't see anything malevolent in calling the GPL viral. It *can* be a feature, but it is something that should be aware of. Frankly, despite RMS's protestations, the GPL should *not* be used for any library, only applications. Precisely *because* of the viral nature of the GPL. (Of course, I'm also of the opinion that the "or later version" is a bad thing, because of stuff I've heard about what might happen in GPL3.) With respect to software, the use of a GPLed program *may* force you to choose a licence that you don't like for your own programs. If I create a program that I wish to licence as BSD, but use a GPLed library (no matter how insignificant), the whole work must be made available under the GPL -- not BSD. Thus, I've got a situation where my new original work (without the GPLed library) is BSD, the library is GPL, but the *whole work* is GPL. This is viral -- or perhaps parasitic (and I *do* consider that to be negative). Frankly, what I *don't* like about the GPL even for programs is that I have to ship a licence that contains a lot of philosophical twaddle. If I choose a GPL-clone that doesn't have the philosophical twaddle, then *by definition* my software is incompatible with the GPL and the code "should not be combined." The GPL's viral nature (the "copyleftness") is a feature, not a bug, but it's not appropriate for large classes of software. Regarding whether GPLed libraries "taints" Ruby: The FSF presumes that any inclusion of one file by another is the creation of a derivative work of the two files. When talking about physical inclusion, this is absolutely the case. When talking about linking -- static or dynamic -- the situation is far less clear. (The SCO case appears to centre around some of this.) If I link to the standard C library, is my program a derivative work of that library? What if I do so as a dynamic link? Static linking has a much better case for the idea that there's cross-contamination and physical inclusion and a derivative work is created. Dynamic linking, however, is much less likely to be the case, because most copyright laws have exemptions for memory caches and active memory (apparently, in the 80s, some folks tried to charge for two licences for every running copy of a program -- one for the copy on disk, one for the copy in memory). This point, despite the FSF's claims, has *not* been decided one way or another, either by law or caselaw. I personally recommend that the LGPL, MIT, or modified BSD licence be used for software that is intended for use by other software. - -austin - -- austin ziegler * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.07.09 * 16:13:33 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com iQA/AwUBPwx8KmZOwWepqGDiEQLT9ACfU64uWQm/SbNo6PcjDr8G0EpUBnwAoLcz sDzBxWqZ4qZgvmiYeTgzsQHb =hz3f -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----