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July 2007
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2007.07.16 11:51 "Re: [ANNOUNCE]: Libtiff 4.0.0alpha released", by Graeme Gill
Andy Cave wrote:
> So what happens if someone builds a standalone piece of s/w
> (tiffjbigdecomp) that reads (compressed) data from stdin and writes
> (uncompressed) data to stdout. They can then write s/w that execs a
> sub-process, redirecting stdin/stdout to be a file on disk and a pipe,
> and then just read the decompressed data from the pipe. Does that
> infringe GPL?
Not if you don't distribute it no. Package it up with a particular
purpose in mind with code that isn't distributed under the same
terms as the GPL and copy it, and you aren't complying with the GPL
since the package is a derived work, and copyright applies to derived
works.
> I think not (as otherwise no commercial s/w could run on
> Linux), in which case I think the claim that dynamic loading / linking
> does (infringe GPL) is not necessarily solid, as the difference between
> that and dynamic linking to a library is pretty thin.
It's not a matter of running, it's a matter of copying. And there
are specific exceptions in the GPL for distribution with standard
operating system components, "mere aggregation on the same media",
linking with standard GPL library components, and in the Linux
version of the GPL there is an exception that permits software
that uses the Linux kernel via the user/kernel interface to be
compliant (at least in stuff from Linus). There's certainly
nothing to stop an end user combining GPL and non GPL components
in any way they want to achieve an end ("running" is permitted),
but it may be impossible to distribute ("copy") such combinations
together and be compliant with the GPL.
By default copyright says two copyrighted works aggregated together
is a derived work of both, and the GPL only makes an exception for
the case of aggregation where it is merely a means of distributing
things that are otherwise independent.
Graeme Gill.