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Nicolas George wrote:

|> 	The issue here isn't what the *original* author can do. The problem
|> arises when somebody wants to reuse parts of the original code. The
|> sequence of events goes like this:
|> ~ - You write some code and license it under the GPL;
|> ~ - I take your code (or part of it), write some more code that
|> interfaces with yours and want to distribute it. Then I can't choose
|> the license under which I distribute *my* code.
|
| (For the sake of argument, I take over the "you" character in your
message.)
|
| The whole point is that, if you took some of my code to do yours,
then it is
| not just _your_ code: it is _our_ code.
|
| The FSF lawyers make a lot of noise and smoke, and pretend that
the "viral"
| effect of the GPL is wider that it actually is. If your code
interfaces with
| GPL code, but do not contain any GPL code itself, there is
absolutely no
| legal basis for your code to be under GPL. The resulting binary,
on the
| other hand, as a mix between GPL code and your code, could not be
| re-distributed under a more restrictive license.

	Well, AFAIK that particular aspect of the GPL has never been tested
in court. But this is precisely what the GPL forbids. In particular,
if I take a GPL DLL and if I write a program that uses this DLL,
even if my program does not contain any outside code itself, I must
release it under the GPL (or go to court to have this aspect
clarified, which is a chancy proposition).

		Jerome
- --
+------------------------- Jerome M. BERGER ---------------------+
|    mailto:jeb### [at] freefr      | ICQ:    238062172            |
|    http://jeberger.free.fr/     | Jabber: jeb### [at] jabberfr   |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
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