GPL and Python modules.
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu
Mon Oct 25 20:52:42 EDT 2004
Robert Kern wrote:
> Tim Churches wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2004-10-26 at 09:29, Cliff Wells wrote:
>
>
> [snip]
>
>>> If this is true, I can't think of any way for a program to run on a
>>> GPL'd system (such as Linux) without becoming GPL'd itself (Unless it
>>> doesn't do any I/O or malloc any memory <wink>).
>>
>>
>>
>> Yes. It seems to be them is some dissonance between these two positions:
>>
>> "It is OK for a closed-source application to allocate memory on a system
>> running the GPLed Linux kernel"
>>
>> and
>>
>> "It is not OK for a GPL-incompatible Python application to import GPLed
>> code into the runtime namespace it is using."
>>
>> I shudder to think what a judge and jury would make of such a
>> distinction.
>
>
> I'm sure they would see the explicit exception made in the GPL:
>
> """
> However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
> include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or
> binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of
> the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
> itself accompanies the executable.
> """
Excuse me. I am retarded. Please ignore me.
--
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu
"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter
More information about the Python-list
mailing list