[Sussex] [From Debian-uk] Sun through the Looking Glass

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Geoff

On Wed, Jun 30, 2004 at 02:25:00PM +0100, Geoff Teale wrote:
> So Steve asked:
> 
> >Question for those how have the ear of a lawyer :-)
> >
> >If Sun release Looking Glass under the GPL aren't Sun required by the 
> >GPL to GPL the libraries that it depends upon too?
> >
> Do you mean me? ;-)

I just might of ;-)
 
> This is quite simple - if you make a library GPL then those who link to 
> it must also be GPL.  However, GPL code can make use of non-GPL code 
> happily - if it couldn't then you would never be able to run  a GPL app 
> on a proprietary system - afterall how many apps do you know that don't 
> at some level link to each platforms equivalent of glibc ?
> 
> GPL _may_ be viral but it doesn't flow upstream.

You are, of course, correct.  I knew this but wasn't thinking straight.
This is just Sun being non-free again.  It appears to me that about the 
only distro that can "ship" this is Gentoo - as binary distribution is
prohibited -- the GPL code is linked to non-free libraries.

Does Gentoo do anything to stop people building software that is non-free
in this way?  After all the licensing of the dependants may well stop 
the distribution of binary images without a license from Sun.

Steve D