[sldev] Compile as installer

[Argent Stonecutter]

On 2008-01-24, at 09:39, Lawson English wrote:
> Argent Stonecutter wrote:
>> Does the Linden version of the GPL explicitly exclude those  
>> libraries? If not, you can't legally distribute a binary version  
>> of the open source client, since those are not a standard part of  
>> the OS it runs on. Not that that's likely to create practical  
>> problems, given that it's unlikely Linden Labs will get on your  
>> case about it.

>> The FLOSS exception does not appear to cover this, and according  
>> to the FSF the fact that they're shared libraries doesn't make a  
>> difference: shared libraries are not 'independent and separate  
>> works'.
>

> The FSF is full of it too.

I can't really disagree, but people who use the GPL do. More  
importantly, they've gotten real life lawyers to agree with their  
interpretation and gotten cases settled over it (like, in the GNU MP  
library case, and Korn's UNIX compatibility package for Windows).

> You have no control over which shared libraries are distributed and  
> used with what.

No, but you do have control over what include files and libraries you  
link with to create your GPLed binary. The FSF's argument is that if  
you are going to link a GPLed product with a non-GPLed API, *even if*  
it's using a shared library, you're creating a derived work. If  
there's a GPLed (or in the case of SL, any FOSS) implementation of  
the library that's ABI compatible, you can link with that and then  
use any other shared library at run time.

> It would be like creating a copyright notice that you can't put a  
> notebook full of notes in an arbitrary binder and sell it because  
> you don't like the copyright on the contents of the rest of the  
> binder, even though the notes can be sold separately, next to each  
> other.

That's basically what the GPL is all about. That's pretty much the  
whole difference between the GPL and the LGPL. Early drafts of teh  
GPL3 went even further than this.

If LL explicitly listed the packages THEY ship as an exception, then  
the issue would never come up.