Alexander Klenin wrote:

>>If you use GPL, you can't use Firebird.
>>
>>
>Huh? Sorry, this sounds like some random FUD. Neither GPL nor IPL
>imposes any restriction on usage of covered software.
>
>

I'm really sorry, but the document you references states definitively
that linking object modules subject to IPL (and by extension, IDPL) and
GPL is "illegal". While Firebird doesn't presume to say how you can use
the code, the Free Software Foundation most decidedly does.

>
>
>>Firebird doesn't care, but the "Free" Software Foundation may sue you.
>>
>>
>Actually, Firebird does (or should) care. Incorporating IPL-covered
>code into GPLed work does violate IPL just as well as the reverse
>violates GPL. So the licenses are incompatible in both directions (as
>opposed to, say, revised BSD license which is one-way compatible with
>practically anything).
>
>

I think you will find nothing in the Firebird or IBPhoenix archive that
suggests that Firebird or IBPhoenix has the least problem with linking
Firebird with anything or everything. The source of the restrictions,
prohibitions, and threats are solely from the "Free" Software Foundation.

To the best of my knowledge, the only reason that IPL/IDPL "violate" the
GPL is that they don't requirement software developers give away their
work for free if they don't wish to do so. I have chose to put a fair
bit of my privately developed code in the public domain. I have also
chosen to keep some private (even worse, to protect it with patents). I
think the "Free" Software Foundation idea that I should be denied to
right to give away some code if I don't give away everything is, well,
unusual and, perhaps, difficult to justify.


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