On Jun 16, 2008, "Horst H. von Brand" <vonbrand(a)inf.utfsm.cl> wrote:
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> They claim that it doesn't matter if the components are
> distributed separately or not. For example, you can't modify a GPL'd
> component so that it needs a library under different terms even if the
> parts are never distributed together.
Sure you can. In the heyday of GNU software it was /only/ run on
propietary systems, and all that software was routinely modified
with the express purpose of running on newer/changed versions of
propietary systems (which were the only ones available, remember).
But the permission to distribute the combined works is presumably
covered by the system library exception. I don't think it's enough to
distribute a non-GPLed library separately to have permission under the
GPL to distribute a program derived from it.
--
Alexandre Oliva
http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist oliva(a){lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
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Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva(a){redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}