Re: [Help-gsl] Licensing

[John Pye]

Hi all

The intent of the GPL with regard to its use in proprietary code is
pretty clear, I think:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem

It says

> You cannot incorporate GPL-covered software in a proprietary system.

then it says

> The difference between this and “incorporating” the GPL-covered
> software is partly a matter of substance and partly form. The
> substantive part is this: if the two programs are combined so that
> they become effectively two parts of one program, then you can't treat
> them as two separate programs. So the GPL has to cover the whole thing.

I think that acid test is this: does you program function in some useful
way in the absence of GSL? OR is GSL essential for its correct operation?

I think that many of the authors of GSL have been contributing to it
because they like the 'viral' idea of GPL: by contributing a good piece
of FOSS to GSL, they make it incrementally more likely that other people
will build on it and create more FOSS code that they, in turn, will
release. So GSL has come in to being, to large extent, *because* of this
particular restriction.

Cheers
JP

Luke wrote:
> Jonny,
> I found this Wikipedia article interesting and relevant:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_works
>
> So it seems that it isn't quite clear cut that you *have* to release
> item #1 under the GPLv3, although doing so would certainly eliminate
> any debate.  But it seems for sure that item #5 must be GPL v3, since
> it is clearly a 'derivative work' since you have hacked much of it
> together from the GSL sources themselves.  My interpretation of item
> #6 is the same as that of item #1.
>
> Other thoughts?
>
> ~Luke
>   

-- 
Dr John Pye
Dept of Engineering
Australian National University