[Pipet Devel] license issue revisited

[Jean-Marc Valin]

> There is a problem, as he says, if Piper requires these libraries to run.  I
> don't believe that any of the libraries that Jean-Marc is concerned about will
> be required.  But, they should not be shipped/distributed with Piper either.
> Then, it is the user's concern.

Piper will not require any of these plugins... and I don't think we should have
restrictions about what we can ship together. After all, RedHat used to ship
StarOffice (non-Free) with its Linux distribution.

> 
> > I agree with him: we should play safe by explicitly specifying the exception,
> > but the fact that the user does the linking, makes (I think) linking a non-free
> > node with a GPL node legal. Since the linking is only done on demand at
> > run-time, there's no redistribution problem.
> 
> Yes, I agree.  We should include that exception.  It doesn't mean, however,
> that GPL and non-GPL libraries can legally be linked and then distributed
> together.  I think that we should also provide such a warning to users in the
> license.

We're OK, since it's always the user that performs the linking... and the
linking is "undone" when Piper exits. So you can never distribute a "derived"
(linked) work. You can then use any plugin you like...

> I agree.  Now, the question is GPL or LGPL ;-)  I vote for GPL with the afore
> mentioned exceptions.

I vote for the LGPL for the PL though, because a non-free plugin will need to
use classes from the PL (this is done at compile time). Otherwise, the GPL i OK
with me.

	Jean-Marc

-- 
Jean-Marc Valin
Universite de Sherbrooke - Genie Electrique
valj01 at gel.usherb.ca