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Re: [O] How to make a non-GPL Org-mode exporter?


From: Andreas Hilboll
Subject: Re: [O] How to make a non-GPL Org-mode exporter?
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 12:14:29 +0200
User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.8.0

On 28.07.2015 11:30, Oleh Krehel wrote:
> Andreas Hilboll <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>>>> Look here:
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GNU_General_Public_License&section=11#Libraries
>>>>
>>>> Most useful quote:
>>>>
>>>>> The Free Software Foundation (which holds the copyright of several
>>>>> notable GPL-licensed software products and of the license text itself)
>>>>> asserts that an executable which uses a dynamically linked library is
>>>>> indeed a derivative work. This does not however apply to separate
>>>>> programs communicating with one another.
> 
>>> thanks for this link and excerpt.  I could argue that the key word in
>>> the excerpt is "executable".  I cannot see how code written in elisp
>>> itself would need to be GPL.
>>
>> Exactly.  To quote again
>> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL:
>>
>>    When the interpreter just interprets a language, the answer is no.
>>    The interpreted program, to the interpreter, is just data; a free
>>    software license like the GPL, based on copyright law, cannot limit
>>    what data you use the interpreter on. You can run it on any data
>>    (interpreted program), any way you like, and there are no
>>    requirements about licensing that data to anyone.
> 
> Just to link the paragraph exactly below the one you quoted
> 
>> However, when the interpreter is extended to provide “bindings” to
>> other facilities (often, but not necessarily, libraries), the
>> interpreted program is effectively linked to the facilities it uses
>> through these bindings. So if these facilities are released under the
>> GPL, the interpreted program that uses them must be released in a
>> GPL-compatible way. The JNI or Java Native Interface is an example of
>> such a binding mechanism; libraries that are accessed in this way are
>> linked dynamically with the Java programs that call them. These
>> libraries are also linked with the interpreter. If the interpreter is
>> linked statically with these libraries, or if it is designed to link
>> dynamically with these specific libraries, then it too needs to be
>> released in a GPL-compatible way.
> 
> Indeed, the Emacs interpreter gives "bindings" to all Emacs facilities,
> which are GPL, and the interpreted program that uses them must be
> released in a GPL-compatible way.

I would interpret this as

   "As long as I write pure elisp and don't require' and GPL'ed part of
   Emacs, I can release my code under any license I want.  If I do
   require' any part of Emacs, I have to go the GPL path."

If I'm wrong with this interpretation, please explain why.

-- Andreas.



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