[sword-devel] Question about Public Domain

[DM Smith]

On Mar 16, 2009, at 7:51 PM, Ben Morgan wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Chris Little  
> <chrislit at crosswire.org> wrote:
>
>
> Ben Morgan wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 10:04 AM, mmital <mital.manu at gmail.com <mailto:mital.manu at gmail.com 
> >> wrote:
>
>    Hi,
>
>    As Chris pointed out, all front-ends *have* to use GPL v2. So the
>    public domain door is closed for me.
>
> The license for a front end has to be GPL v2 compatible. Not GPL v2  
> necessarily.
>
> This is completely incorrect (more specifically backwards). To say  
> that a license is GPL compatible means that code licensed under that  
> license may be incorporated in/used by GPL licensed software. Code  
> that is GPL licensed may only be used within code that is likewise  
> GPL licensed. (This is the whole "viral" nature of the GPL.)
> I thought it was the whole glob of the application that had to be  
> able to be licensed under the GPL? An individual component of my  
> application can be released under another license.


The GPL is viral in so far that it is used directly. So if you need to  
have the headers in order to compile, then the code is now infected  
with the GPL.

A plugin architecture works around that. As far as I know that is the  
only loophole.

So if I find that a non-GPL program (open or closed source) has a  
plugin architecture and I write a plugin using GPL code, that plugin  
is GPL. What it plugs into does not become GPLed.

In Him,
	 DM

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