🚀 go-pugleaf

seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes:
>In mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu writes:
>>Finally, note that this is really academic.  All you have to do is
>>distribute a bunch of .o's and aggregate them with the library.
>>Distribute the source to the library and not your .o's, and supply
>>instructions to link the result.

>Stallman et al have taken the stance that the above method still requires
>you to distribute your source code.  Since your code was designed to work
>with the GNU code, and *only* the GNU code, then it must fall under the
>copyleft.

What's the difference, ethically speaking, between this and proprietary
user interfaces? Seems to me that "designed to work with the GNU code"
is a lot like "designed to work with code with the look and feel of
the GNU code". Isn't it entirely possible for someone to come up with
libg++  (for instance) compatible libraries which are Truly Free
Software (or, on the other hand, proprietary software)? If so, that
would tend to deflate these particular sails quite a bit.

>Also, rms has stated that a program which mereley includes a *header file*
>from the libg++ stuff falls under the copyleft.

This is much more problematic, because header files are, indeed, source
code (at least in C++) because they contain inlines. On the other hand,
header files are _also_ interface specifications, which are currently
in a nebulous area of copyright. I really can't believe that either the
FSF or the LPF (League for Programming Freedom) would argue in _favor_
of the copyrightability of software interface specifications, or of
programming language descriptions, or of any such thing, any more than
they'd agree with the copyrightability of user interface specifications.

--John

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John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
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