Re: qawo-problem and a book project

[Kenneth Geisshirt <kenneth at geisshirt dot dk>]

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, M Atakan Gurkan wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 07:26:02PM +0100, Brian Gough wrote:
> > Any example programs which use GSL should be available under the GNU
> > General Public License, so that people can freely use them too.
> >
> Is this really true? If I write a program and use GSL routines in it and
> distribute only the source, as it would be in a book, I am not copying GSL but
> only using it. I thought one needed to provide the program under GPL if that
> program _includes_ GPL'ed code to some extent. The source, possibly, does not
> contain GPL'ed code.

My understanding of the issue is the following:

If your program is linked to a library which is under GPL, and your
program cannot be linked without this library, then your program must be
released under GPL (in this case the linking is as good as including.

I guess that if two libraries (one under GPL, one under some other
license) give us the exact same API and functionality, you're not forces
to apply GPL to your program. But currently, GSL is the only library that
implements the GSL API. GSL's authors (luckily) use this opportunity to
advocate GPL :-).

Kneth

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Kenneth Geisshirt, M.Sc., Ph.D.         http://kenneth.geisshirt.dk
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