Re: [LAD] GPL Violation Alert! - Sorry if this is a duplicate

From: Gabriel M. Beddingfield <gabriel@email-addr-hidden>
Date: Tue Aug 04 2009 - 20:39:27 EEST

On Tue, 4 Aug 2009, Chris Cannam wrote:
>
> effectively copying it, but it seems like a _really_ murky area to me.
> Not one that I'd ever really considered. It doesn't seem all that
> plausible, but do you think this view is widely accepted?

Yes, I think that it is widely accepted that this is a _really_ murky
area. :-)

In the case of *users*... I stand corrected. Sorry for the noise.
(Ralf: thanks for the challenge.)

WRT the OP, here's a couple of more relevent sections from the GPL FAQ...
and even concedes the "murky" part....

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem
  -and-
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLWrapper

In the case of the OP, the problem is that they were distributed
together... as a whole. They at least have to honor the GPL requirements
for distributing the plugin binaries. As for GPL-tainting the whole
program, it has to be determined if they are interfaced "at arm's length."

<opinionating_the_murk>
Since we all know that LADSPA is a protocal that causes dynamic linking to
object code, it seems clear that this is *not* at arms length. But, I can
see room for argument that LADSPA is an intermediate protocol (like
text-based I/O, TCP/IP communication, morse code)... and that this makes
it arms length. So, I'm now back where we started. :-P
</opinionating_the_murk>

Peace,
Gabriel
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Received on Wed Aug 5 00:15:03 2009

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