Re: Corel's apt frontend
Zygo Blaxell wrote:
> Hmmm...consider the Wine project: a re-implementation of Microsoft DLL's
> (among other things) using no Microsoft code. No code means no headers
> as well--anything less would be copyright infringement.
>
> Does this mean that as long as a developer writes their own headers, they
> can link anything they want to against a GPLed .so file without infringing
> on the GPL?
Regardless of whether or not the dynamic linkage is a violation, the header
file used has (almost) nothing to do with it.
A legal argument can be made that the relevant portions of header content
are not protectable by copyright since they are essentially a 'compilation
of facts' and must be expressed in the way they are for compatability and
interoperability reasons. The only portions of header files that might
be copyrightable are complex macros or inlines, and comments.
This argument is fairly important to us given our work on WINE.
I'm not a lawyer, of course, but if anyone is counting on header copyright
as a mechanism for 'viral' license transmission, it would probably be a
good idea to talk to a lawyer.
-Gav
--
Gavriel State
Engineering Architect - Linux Development
Corel Corp
gavriels@corel.com
Reply to: