Prof Eben Moglen on L/GPL and jars

[J Aaron Farr <ja...@yahoo.com>]

With all the discussion about licensing with LGPL stuff, I thought this might
be interesting to everyone.  Comes from the new Slashdot interview with Eben
Moglen.

(http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/03/02/20/1544245.shtml?tid=117&tid=123)

 2) Clarifying the GPL
by sterno

One issue that I know has come up for me is how the GPL applies in situations
where I'm using GPL software but I'm not actually modifying it. For example, I
write a Java application, and it is reliant on a JAR that is GPL'd. Do I then
need to GPL my software? I haven't changed the JAR in anyway, I'm just
redistributing it with my software. The end user could just as easily download
the JAR themselves, it's just a convenience for me to offer it in my package.

Eben:

The language or programming paradigm in use doesn't determine the rules of
compliance, nor does whether the GPL'd code has been modified. The situation is
no different than the one where your code depends on static or dynamic linking
of a GPL'd library, say GNU readline. Your code, in order to operate, must be
combined with the GPL'd code, forming a new combined work, which under GPL
section 2(b) must be distributed under the terms of the GPL and only the GPL.
If the author of the other code had chosen to release his JAR under the Lesser
GPL, your contribution to the combined work could be released under any license
of your choosing, but by releasing under GPL he or she chose to invoke the
principle of "share and share alike." 

-----------

jaaron

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: general-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: general-help@jakarta.apache.org