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[Alex Martelli]

"Pat McCann" <thisis at bboogguusss.org> wrote in message
news:3bem3bamwl.m3b at localhost.localdomain...
> "Alex Martelli" <alex at magenta.com> writes:
    [snip]
> > RMS is on record as saying that such "arm's length" communication
> > does not spread the GPL to other components chatting with the GPL'd
> > one, but I think that's pretty clear anyway.
>
> This Corba-related post, purporting to be from Stallman,
>
http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=berlin-design&m=93118897023514&w=2
> has an interesting twist on that.  Whether the GPL is required to be

The key quotation of that post from my POV is:
"""
I now understand CORBA much more than before, and my conclusion is
that people who want to make proprietary programs talk with your
objects have a lawful way do so, no matter what licenses you use.
"""

I fully agree with this conclusion.  Other componentization technologies
(COM, EJB's, SOAP, etc) work quite similarly.

> spread or not, using the GPL will infect other components anyway because
> many developers are ignorant and easily fooled.

This thesis is more debatable (and RMS does not state the reasons
you *infer* for the consequences he hypothesizes: take care, when
indirectly quoting somebody, about putting your words in their
mouths...).  I think people, by and large, try to behave in ways they
think will be beneficial to them -- and if they're so easily fooled, and
so often wrong, as some purport to think, how did humanity manage
to do all we've done over the centuries and millennia...?-)


Alex