Interpreters

[David Johnson]

On Fri, 04 Aug 2000, Terry Hancock wrote:

> Should a Free interpreter intended to be able to
> run proprietary programs be covered under the
> GPL or the LGPL?

Short answer: whatever license you as the author wants :-)

Long answer: It doesn't matter. The GPL does not normally cover the
output of programs, including interpreters. gcc includes an exception,
but it is not strictly necessary, and I believe it was included to
counter an old rumour that all programs compiled with gcc needed to be
GPLed.

Any libraries that the interpreted programs need to use should be LGPL
though, or have a linkage exception. This would of course be runtime
linkage, and the current vote is 68% to 32% (just kidding) that it is
okay to do with the GPL, but the LGPL or an exception will set your
users minds at ease.

-- 
David Johnson
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