[Pipet Devel] license issue revisited

[J.W. Bizzaro]

The last we spoke about the license, Jean-Marc brought up a serious problem. 
Basically, Overflow (the processing layer) could not legally link with GPL and
non-GPL libraries, BOTH AT THE SAME TIME.  This stopped the discussion dead in
its tracks, as there seemed to be no way around it.  It also seemed to smack
of the licensing problems that KDE had: We could make an exception for non-GPL
libraries, but the owners of the GPL libraries would each have to make the
same exception, and that doesn't seem likely.

But, Jean-Marc, isn't this library linking done by the user at compile time? 
Providing we don't distribute Piper with links to both non-GPL and GPL
libraries, it would then be left up to the user.  And, an important thing to
consider is that a user can't really violate the GPL unless he/she
re-distributes.  As far as I know, a user can link GPL with a license from
Mars, and it won't matter, if it is for personal use.

Comments?

Cheers.
Jeff
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J.W. Bizzaro                                           jeff at bioinformatics.org
Director, Bioinformatics.org: The Open Lab     http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
               -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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