Urias McCullough wrote:
Just to add to my existing understanding and provide a pro-GPL viewpoint into this discussion, those who wrote the AC3 decoder might suggest that Haiku's media kit would not be as good, or have as many features if it was distributed without their code, thus, by distributing the media kit with their code, they might insist that the media kit is a "derivative" of their code. I realize that loadable modules make this entire discussion *very* fuzzy, but the argument can go either way. It will ultimately come down to interpretation and what the original copyright authors feel is right.
Except that they could do absolutely nothing if Haiku was closed source and someone created the add-on by using only the headers available (i.e. no one would be able to ask that Haiku or anything else other than the add-on itself would be licensed under the GPL). If you think about it, the fact that we make the package available with the base distribution is a technicality. We could as well put the package somewhere for download and make it be automatically downloaded after installation and this, also, would not result in needing to license Haiku under the GPL.
Anyway, consulting with someone that *IS* a lawyer is a good idea, but what I mention above is reason enough for me to think that either we are safe. If we are not, then I will start to agree with GPL critics and say that the license is crazy. :)
-Bruno
