[cc-community] GNU-GPL, makefiles, and non-distributed executables
Greg London
email at greglondon.com
Mon Dec 17 10:01:53 EST 2007
First, while I appreciate the verve and vigor with
which some vigilantes are defending unnamed GNU-GPL
works against some theoretical attack by an
imaginary Alice based upon some hypothetical scenario,
if I had wanted a flame war today based on
misunderstandings and a mispercieved attack on a group,
I could have simply gone to wikipedia.
Second, while some of you have invoked righteous
indignation that the answer is obvious and easy
and stop asking the question, it turns out that
at least the first answer I received from FSF.org
is that the person who replied to my query said they
had the exact same question, and they don't know
exactly why it works this way either.
The difference, they suggested, is that it's a
matter of intent, not technical details.
Which doesn't answer my question. THough it
may indicate that it's unanswerable.
If intent is the key legal trigger, then Alice may
be able to make a .o file and Eve may be able to
link in George's code, and it might all be fine
and legal as long as Alice didn't *intend* for Eve
to do that.
Those of you who were adamantly CERTAIN that it was
against the license might want to reevaluate to
incorporate that it's actually a bit fuzzier than
you thought, cause "intent" is about as fuzzy as
you can get. Although, that might mean you can't
look at the world as simple black and white, where
you're wearing white, and anyone who even questions
the license must be wearing black.
In any event, I think the "Vigilante Immune System" on
this list is a bit too overactive to have any kind
of productive discussion about how this aspect of
the license works. I don't feel encouraged to have
a discussion where at any moment I might be dragged
into a dark alley and beat up by someone because I
looked at his license the "wrong" way.
I'll continue digging around off list for answers.
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