Dynamic linking, was: Re: Dispelling BSD License Misconceptions

[Matthew Flaschen]

Ben Tilly wrote:
> On 1/25/07, Matthew Flaschen <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> wrote:
>> Ben Tilly wrote:
>> > Another case of interest is the web.  Suppose that I write GPLed
>> > software that produces a website.  There is no question that the web
>> > pages that I display include lots of stuff that is part of my
>> > codebase.
>>
>> Usually, you're not displaying parts of the codebase that are under
>> the GPL.
> 
> No, I'm not displaying parts of the codebase.  But I'm displaying
> documents that are derivatives of that codebase.  For instance n a
> typical web page I'm going to include some graphics images, a CSS file
> verbatim, possibly include some JavaScript files, and the content of
> the page is going to include large sections of templates that were in
> the codebase.  Much if not all of this is copyrightable information.

Yes, the question is whether it's under the GPL.  Normally, developers
either don't include this content, or put it into the public domain (or
at least a very permissive license).

> 
> Note that similar issues have come up in the case of gcc, and I have
> heard that there are optimizations that have not been made because if
> they were, then the compiled output from gcc would have to be GPLed.

That sounds unlikely to me.  glibc already has an exception for linking
to proprietary software, and Bison can be used to create proprietary
programs, even though both include parts of their code base into
derivative works.  I think they would make the same exception for gcc if
it made practical sense.

Matthew Flaschen

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