[openbeos] Re: mp4 reader now alpha
- From: mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 09:29:44 -0400
Sigh. There are a number of issues here.
I have never liked the use of GPL'ed code. The biggest reason for that
is that it makes it much more difficult for our commercial partners.
Take, for example, Dane (TuneTracker). It is something of a pain for
commercial folks to have to ensure that the customer has everything that
they need to be in compliance. Now some folks would say "that is the
cost of doing business; they are getting all of this stuff for free...".
I would say that anything that stands in the way of Haiku growing is a
bad thing. OTOH, I recognize that it is necessary in many cases, as the
GPL'ed code is huge/complex. We are trying to walk that fine line...
In this case, I think that it is demonstrable that an outside party
(David) can not force Haiku to change their license by creating an
add-on. Not that I think that he is trying to, mind you. Likewise, you
can not force Windows to be GPL by creating a GPL driver, even though
the driver calls the kernel and the kernel calls the driver. I think
that the GNU folks are mistaken in their belief on this one.
----- Original Message -----
From: Danny Robson <danny@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 9:05 am
Subject: [openbeos] Re: mp4 reader now alpha
> Michael Pfeiffer wrote:
> >> But: don't we already use GPLed tools, or have the commandline
> tools>> all been rewritten in MIT code? Because if some GPL tools
> are already
> >> included, there's no objection to using the GPLed AAC encoders,
> right?>
> >
> > That depends on how the AAC encoder is linked to other code.
> > AFAIK code is not forced to be licenced under GPL if it
> > dynamically linkes GPLed code (GPLed code is provided as an
> > add-on or a shared library).
> > If it statically links the GPLed code then the source code
> > has to be GPLed as well.
>
> I think that dynamically linking is considered being part of the
> same
> application, hence virally GPL'ing it. Have a look at this though,
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins
>
> - Danny
>
>
Other related posts:
