On Thu, 18 October 2001, email@greglondon.com wrote:
> can someone give a legal explanation why the following aren't true?
> 1) the GPL does not  prohibit linking

In advance answer to those who say,
"the LGPL allows linking, and states that the GPL prohibits it."

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if the GPL would have to stand alone,
or whether the FSF could submit the LGPL to show intent of the GPL, or what.

But even then, the GPL allows translating the source code of a library
into a machine representation.

I then take my proprietary source and translate it into a machine level 
representation.

I put those two machine representations next to each other in
memory or on a floppy, it's aggregation.

but simply aggregating a library will always be a useless action.
A library has no usability unless I can call it by some means.

so, "fair use" to me would still have to allow me to at least 
modify the machine representation enough such that I can
use it, call it, whatever.

from the LGPL:
> When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or 
> using a shared library, the combination of the two is legally 
> speaking a combined  work, a derivative of the original library. 

two separate blocks of source code side by side is "aggregation", 
but two separate blocks of machine code side by side, is a derived work? 
because you have to modify the machine code to actually use them?

Can you allow derivatives that are translations to machine
level, but are useless because no one can link into them?
Is there no concept of "fair use" in this arena?

"Well Greg, you can use them, as long as your source code is GPL
or LGPL or something like that."

Does it make sense if you flip it around?
Micro$oft makes source code available for their programs,
but you can only compile it with other Microsoft Public Licensed
software. how many would be screaming "No Fair Use!" ???

I suppose when all else fails,  aggregate some acceptable
level of code, and give the user a push button script so they can 
combine the two together.  

luckily, LGPL allows this. If it really is a derived work, another 
license might not be so forgiving.

Oh, well, whatever lets you sleep at night.

Greg


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