Hallo, Thomas Grill hat gesagt: // Thomas Grill wrote:
Marc Lavallée schrieb:
Le 15 Juin 2006 09:40, Frank Barknecht a écrit :
There seems to be no consensus about wether a patch, that uses externals released under GPL, should have to be GPL, too. Personally I don't believe it has to be GPL, but I think, IOhannes once argued that it has to be GPL as well. (Which would mean, that all patches using [expr] would need to be GPL, btw.)
A patch is not a derived work, so it doesn't have to be GPL.
I would be quite surprised if this is true. To my mind it's exactly the same as using a code library with an API, which is where LGPL comes in.
Putting aside, that LGPL and GPL are different beasts, here's how I see that using [expr] affects the licenses I can choose for my patch. Assuming I wrote this interesting application:
#N canvas 0 0 450 300 10; #X obj 144 139 expr 1 + 1;
I might intend to use the GPL-external [expr] in line 2. I might also intend to use an abstraction, that I happened to call "expr.pd" which looks like this:
#N canvas 0 0 450 300 10; #X obj 152 171 $1; #X obj 152 196 $2; #X obj 183 170 $3; #X connect 0 0 1 0; #X connect 2 0 1 1;
It behaves the same as if I'd used the GPL [expr] (minus some in/outlets).
Now would I be obliged to put my 2-line application under GPL, just because it uses a name, for which there also is a GPL-external? In my opinion: no. (In the light of the fact, that nameclashes still are a daily business, it even would be crazy to require that using certains identifiers would automatically make a patch need to follow the GPL.)
However of course as soon as I distribute a binary of the GPL-[expr] or its help file I would need to do as GPL says, which is provide sources for everything etc.
Pd itself is both a programming language and an implementation of this language. To me using the language is like using The Gimp for painting pictures: My pictures don't need to be released under GPL, even when The Gimp is. However distributing (derived) versions of Gimp *would* need to follow the GPL.
But IANAL etc.
Ciao
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__