what does constitute "linking"?

[Hardy, Allan]

Thomas,

I am not sure but we may be talking about different customers/usages?  My point about vulnerable and risk came into play with distribution. Using MYSQL as an In-House database, be it in a commercial company, school, etc - is not at the same risk/concern level.

So where I said: "I am vulnerable to MySQL-Sun/FSF not being happy with me."   It was for application developers/solutions providers, etc that use mysql databases for their deliverables/selling products.

Sorry if I didn't clarify, I assumed it was in context.  I should have clarified more like this:

When my application is 100% dependent on that GPL database, I am vulnerable to MySQL-Sun/FSF not being happy with me IF I DISTRIBUTE my application under a non-gpl compliant license.

With this clarification do you still feel it is a gross exaggeration of risk if someone sells/distributes applications that use a GPL based product, like MySQL?

--"That was just good logical sense to ensure it was compliant with several implementations of XMPP"

It was extra work that wasn't in schedule or plan.  
For this thread it was a legitimate reaction/response to dealing with risks/unknowns in the land of building applications that somehow interact with GPL products.
	
--"Based on that blanket analysis, anything that runs under Linux is also subject to the GPL."

Not at all, well not when you read the rest of my post which discussed how one needs to consider how the copyright owner themselves interprets GPL terms.  

As example, The linux kernel team has an interpretation that is well known to be at odds with the FSF's interpretation.  More specifically concerning User Space applications 'on' linux versus Kernel based (ex: KLMs, drivers) applications.

"He was asking for a legal impression, not a general personal opinion."
That's cool. I was giving a legal impression so he seems to have gotten what he was looking for.

Was it a personal opinion?  Sure in some way. Its also an opinion that is well thought out, support by legal, at least where I work, and guides a great deal of policy.  Which leads me to always want to be accurate and update the view.  Did you have some specific point of analysis/law I should look at?  


-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Charron [mailto:twaffle at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 8:54 PM
To: Hardy, Allan
Cc: Janez Pers; legal at lists.gpl-violations.org
Subject: Re: what does constitute "linking"?

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Hardy, Allan<allan.hardy at lmco.com> wrote:
> Makes sense in some way. If your applications cannot function without
> the GPL application, that's a derived work and FSF expects you to
> reciprocate the benefits of open source and make your application open
> source. Note: Regardless of the technical form of the integration.
> So if my application sits on a server in New Zealand and my MySQL (GPL)
> database is in France, it wouldn't matter. My application is 100%
> dependent on that GPL database and I am vulnerable to MySQL-Sun/FSF not
> being happy with me.

  I'd have to say most MySQL users in commercial environments disagree
with that statement.  That is a gross exaggeration, and I have never
heard of anyone even questioning if their application, using
Postgresql, MySQL, or any other database provider, would be held
accountable to the license of their database server.

> As another illustration, a  recent example we had to deal with involved
> a a Jabber Server, opensource GPL, and a client application my guys had
> written and wanted to distribute.  The client used a standard protocol
> and could technically talk to any server, commercial or open source,
> that used that protocol.  Where we 'dependent' on the GPL server?  Hard
> to say, there is strong technical case of no we were not dependent
> because of use of a standard protocol.  However we had only tested
> against the GPL server, we only offered support for that server, we
> directed the customer to acquire and use that server, etc.  So we made
> them test/document against at least 2 other servers.  We had the
> documentation/marketing materials go agnostic so to speak, we made sure
> to slant the server choice as a customers choice, etc.  All of this was
> to get us away from any appearance of dependency, and it made our
> product/marketing a bit more robust as well.

  That was just good logical sense to ensure it was compliant with
several implementations of XMPP.  That would be like saying a web
browser which has only been tested against Apache would be potentially
subject to the Apache license.

> In my analysis your Proprietary Application B is a derived work of the
> GPL Work A.  It uses it and seems to depend on it.  I could care less if
> its sockets, dlls, static compiling, etc.  Your adding of a sockets
> wrapper is moot.

  Based on that blanket analysis, anything that runs under Linux is
also subject to the GPL.  He was asking for a legal impression, not a
general personal opinion.

-- 
-- Thomas