[Olsr-dev] olsrd 0.5.5 released

[Henning Rogge]

On Feb 9, 2008 9:02 PM, Andreas Tønnesen <(spam-protected)> wrote:
> On Feb 9, 2008 7:45 PM, Bernd Petrovitsch <(spam-protected)> wrote:
> I never understood the linking-to-GLP-code issue the way that Holger(and others)
> seem to do.
> Dynamic linking trough a user-edited configuration file cannot really be
> controlled in any way. So as long as we do not:
> I Link to the plugin statically
> II Load the plugin by default(default config)
> I really would never have figured this to be a problem. Yes, a GPL plugin
> is distributed with the olsrd source, but so what? We do not use it/link
> to it per-se. The user can change the olsrd configuration in a way that
> causes the library to be loaded, but that is really the users problem...
> (AFAIK the quagga plugin is not loaded by default)
>
> Am I wrong about this? Can a BSD application NOT include a GPL licensed
> shared library in the source distribution??
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins

Can I apply the GPL when writing a plug-in for a non-free program?

    If the program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, then the
plug-ins are separate programs, so the license for the main program
makes no requirements for them. So you can use the GPL for a plug-in,
and there are no special requirements.

    If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function
calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a
single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main
program and the plug-ins. This means that combination of the
GPL-covered plug-in with the non-free main program would violate the
GPL. However, you can resolve that legal problem by adding an
exception to your plug-in's license, giving permission to link it with
the non-free main program.

Henning
-- 
"Wo kämen wir hin, wenn alle sagten, wo kämem wir hin, und niemand
ginge, um einmal zu schauen, wohin man käme, wenn man ginge." (Kurt
Marti)