Is a socket connection a derived work

Michael Rice mrice_web at hotmail.com
Mon Dec 10 06:32:01 UTC 2001


Forgive me if these questions have been asked and answered and for any
naivete enclosed herein (I'm not much of a lawyer). If I were to
bundle/distribute a web-like server (that would be deployed with my
product's installation) that is licensed under the terms of either the GPL
or LGPL with a non-open source product, would my product be considered a
derived work and therefore subject to the GPL or LGPL? That is to say that
the only interaction between my product and the GPL/LGPL would be with HTTP
over a socket? I have a system that I'm thinking about putting under the
LGPL that would consist only of socket calls (no comments about weird app
design, please). Would it be considered derived if, say less than 25% of the
functionality of the non open source product came from the open source web
server? What if more than 50%? Or is it even a question of percents? Thanks
in advance!!
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