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RE: [eclipse-dev] GPL'd Plug-ins

Title: RE: [eclipse-dev] GPL'd Plug-ins

Interesting link. 

If this interpretation is correct (and again, IANAL), this would seem to imply that all Java programs could freely mix GPL and non-GPL classes, since all linking is done dynamically by the classloader at runtime.

On the other hand, if someone took a bunch of GPL/Non-GPL classes and created a single statically-linked executable using GCJ or similar, they would be prohibited from distributing the result.


Dave

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robb, Sam [mailto:sam.robb@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 2:22 PM
> To: eclipse-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: RE: [eclipse-dev] GPL'd Plug-ins
>
>
> (sorry about the previous partial message - fingers slipped.)
>
> I thought I had seen something related to this at one point:
>
> http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/editorials/gpl_dynamic_link.html
>
>   "Stallman says that dynamic linking isn't any different than
>    static linking for the purpose of the GPL. That may be true,
>    but an important issue is who does the linking. The link
>    (static or dynamic) produces a derived work. But if the
>    dynamic linking is done by the end user, he or she has the
>    right to produce the derived work, even containing non-GPL'd
>    code, provided that he or she does not distribute the derived
>    work."
>
> IANAL, but this certainly seems to be a reasonable
> interpretation. You can write a GPL plugin, and distribute
> it, and end users can do whatever they want with it; but
> distributing Eclipse + the GPL plugin (a derived work) would
> be a violation of the GPL.
>
> -Samrobb
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Orme [mailto:DaveO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 2:56 PM
> To: 'eclipse-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx'
> Subject: RE: [eclipse-dev] GPL'd Plug-ins
>
>
>
>
> > I've noticed that there are eclipse plug-ins available that
> > are licensed under the GPL (but not from eclipse.org).  I was
> > just wondered if, given the incompatibility between the GPL
> > and CPL, GPL'd  plug-ins are acceptable. 
> >
> > It seems to me that the when a GPL'd plug-in is loaded, the
> > GPL would consume the framework unless the plug-in runs as a
> > separate program and talks to the framework through some kind
> > of IPC scheme (I'm not familiar with the details of how
> > plug-ins are loaded in eclipse, I really doubt it works that way).
> >
> > Can anyone comment on whether or not GPL'd (not LGPL'd)
> > plug-ins are ok form a licensing perspective?
> IANAL; IBM's lawyers have created the following faq:
> http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-cplfaq.html
> From the faq, it appears that publishing Eclipse plug-ins
> under the GPL is probably problematic (see point #12).
>
>
> Dave
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