Python license (was RE: Python plug-ins for Adobe Products available)

[Remco Gerlich]

David Bolen wrote in comp.lang.python:
> Courageous <jkraska1 at san.rr.com> writes:
> 
> > GPL is not as restrictive as you think. It's possible to
> > write non GPL'd software linked to GPL'd libraries. Or at
> > least so Mr. Stallman told me once.
> 
> Hmm, I don't think you can do that with GPL'd libraries - you'd need
> LGPL'd libraries for that, which if I remember correctly permits
> linking into non-GPL applications.

You can link some non-GPL software to GPL libraries - if the non-GPL stuff
has a GPL-compatible license, like the old Python license, the BSD license,
etc. Licenses so free that you're allowed to add the GPL's restrictions to
them, and that don't have any extra restrictions by themselves. The new
Python license should be GPL compatible so that the interpreter can be
linked to GPL code.

But linking is a fuzzy area anyway. Static linking makes a derived product,
ok. But dynamic linking? Some COM binding? Frontends? It's a very hazy area.
The usual method to find out what makes a derived product in the GPL sense
is to ask RMS himself.

-- 
Remco Gerlich,  scarblac at pino.selwerd.nl

   This is no way to be
     Man ought to be free      -- Ted Bundy
       That man should be me