From: Paul Brannan <pbrannan@...>
Date: 2003-07-11T05:32:29+09:00
Subject: Re: My brief and torrid affair with Ruby.

On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 05:14:18AM +0900, Sean O'Dell wrote:
> >From what I've read regarding the GPL and libraries:
> 
> If your program links to a GPL library or application using anything more
> than the most generic of mechanisms (such as a stdio pipe), your program
> must also be GPL.

What about applications that can link with either readline or libedit?
Must these be GPL because they can be linked with readline?

I've been unable to find the link, but I recall reading that if the
application *could* be linked to a non-GPL alternative, then the
application does not have to be licensed under the GPL.  Linus seems to
take this view with the kernel, since he didn't want to force the GPL on
drivers written for other OSes that were ported to Linux (though iirc he
also said this shouldn't be applied to anything other than the kernel).

Paul