[thelist] GNU / GPL

Shawn K. Quinn skquinn at speakeasy.net
Wed Oct 24 13:46:24 CDT 2007


On Wed, 2007-10-24 at 11:04 -0500, Stephen Rider wrote:
> I believe I have seen software that, the first time you run it, goes  
> on the internet and downloads needed GPL libraries and installs  
> them.  This is supposedly a workaround because the GPLed library is  
> not actually distributed with the software itself.
> 
> I have no idea of the legality of this.  It's possible the software  
> authors doing this break the law.  But I have definitely seen it
> more  
> than once in non-GPL applications.  Worht checking into.

If this was as widespread as you say it is, I'm surprised nothing was
said about it while GPL version 3 was being drafted recently. Maybe it's
technically within even the spirit of the GPL by a hair, but I
definitely smell a rat.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net>




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