On 4 May 2001, at 20:02, Dietrich Schulten wrote:

> "Paul Schmidt" <paul@...> schrieb:
>
> > If your going to open source something, then please make it open
> > source, the open/closed model seems to be growing in popularity, IB
> > is a perfect example, Borland opened the source so they could get
> > other people to contribute, but they can keep their changes hidden
> > (closed), and charge bix bucks for them, read the licence. The
> > biggest problem with this Open/Closed model, is that it often
> > results in a code fork, in IB's case the code forked into Firebird,
> > almost immediately. The purely open Linux Kernel hasn't forked
> > although it's been around for nearly 10 years.
>
> >From recent experience: In order to enable people to freely use
> >Marathon
> together with GPL and non-GPL projects, don't GPL it, but LGPL it.
> Read gnu.org for the details, if you go GPL, then Marathon could only
> be used with GPL software.
>
> LGPL is compatible with GPL, but it can also be used with Mozilla,
> OpenOffice, Apache and all those non-GPL licenses.
>
I am not a lawyer, and I suggest anyone who is considering using
someone else's licence, to seek legal advice before doing so.

What your saying, is if I use vim to produce a .c file, that the
resulting application would then be GPL'd? I don't think that's
true, and you would have a heck of a time proving it. It would be
the same as saying that if I use notepad, to type my .c file, that
the resulting ececutable falls under a Microsoft EULA!

The GPL only comes into effect if the resulting executable contains
some GPL binary code. For example if you use gcc to compile, and use
a GPL'd library, then your executable will contain some GPL code, so
it has to be GPL. However if you wrote your own libraries, and then
used gcc to convert that to an executable, then the GPL doesn't come
into effect. At least this is the way I understand it.

Paul


Paul Schmidt,
Tricat Technologies
Email: paul@...
Website: www.tricattechnologies.com