Question regarding modules/pluggins license?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

"Tony Linde" <ael at star.le.ac.uk> writes:

> How can writing to an API force you to conform to that product's license? If
> that was the case, a Java app running on Windows would be illegal and on
> Linux would have to be GPLed.

A number of people have argued that if the only implementation of an
API is under the GPL, and if the API is not independently described,
nor managed by a standards organization, then writing to that API is,
in effect, creating a derived work of the software which implements
the API.

A number of people have argued the opposite.

Nobody would make this argument about the Java API, of course, which
is widely described and has several independent implementations.

Ian
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