[cc-community] GNU-GPL, makefiles, and non-distributed executables
Greg London
email at greglondon.com
Fri Dec 14 19:40:59 EST 2007
Scenario:
George has some software. He licensed it GNU-GPL.
Alice has an application. She wants to use some of George's code in her
application. But she already has some of her own code, and she want's to
keep her code proprietary.
Eve is an end-user of Alice's application. She'd like to see George's code
rolled into Alice's application too.
Alice generates object files for her code and object files for George's
code. She includes the source code for George's code. Alice then includes
a makefile and a compiler and bundles the whole thing on a CD and mails it
to Eve.
Eve compiles the object files together on her computer. Alice makes Eve
agree to not distribute the resulting executable.
Question:
Does this satisfy the GNU-GPL applied to George's code?
I thought it would. But I was discussing this recently with another open
source enthusiast, and they were certain this couldn't satisfy the
license.
If it doesn't, can someone explain?
Greg
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