What is Copyleft?

[Dave J Woolley]

> From:	Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. [SMTP:rod at cyberspaces.org]
> 
> Interesting point. In the ordinary course of programming, I suspect there
> would be no derivative work created, hence the GPL should provide no
> obstacle for distributing the program as open source. As you mentioned,
> 
	[DJW:]  In the normal course of programming the host
	program will be combined with the header files (or typelib)
	from the libary to produce the object code and the further
	reference will be made to the library in producing the 
	final, executable.  You would need clean room development
	to avoid this.

	One other point is that the argument is about whether the 
	letter of the GPL allows something rather than whether the
	spirit does.  If the letter is found defective, it is resonable
	to assume that the next version of the [L]GPLed code will
	have a licence that is no longer defective.  You would then
	be stuck with having to maintain a separate development branch.

	IANAL 
[DJW:]  

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