Re: GPM license question (Sorry Depressing / Annoying )

[Thomas Dickey]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2014 at 04:15:27PM +0200, Bernd Jendrissek wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Patrick <address@hidden> wrote:
> > #ifdef HAVE_LIBDL
> > /* use dynamic loader to avoid linkage dependency */
> > #include <dlfcn.h>
> >
> > It must be okay because it's not statically linked
> 
> Do some more research. It isn't clear at all that only static linking
> would trigger the GPL.
> 
> More relevant is whether libncurses is a "major components (compiler,
> kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable
> runs" or not.
> 
> Are you distributing libncurses with your application and making your
> app link to that copy of libncurses? If so, is that copy of libncurses
> built with USE_GPL_SUPPORT? If so, I'd say the GPL applies to you.

You are missing a point: none of the ncurses ABI (visible to a calling
application) contains any information related to GPM.  It's perfectly
possible to compile an application on one machine without GPM and reuse
the binary on another which does have it, using shared libraries.  Because
Patrick's application has no dependency upon GPM, he is under no obligation.

On the other hand, someone who bundles ncurses with GPM is obliged to
deliver source.  I don't do that, so likewise I am under no obligation.

fwiw, none of my test-packages even configure to support GPM -
it is rarely used nowadays, and has never been a default configure option.

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <address@hidden>
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net

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