How about if I use C function calls and change the LD_LIBRARY_PATH ? Does my program's licensing change ??
The question at issue has nothing to do with whether Vidomi are using an API. They were distributing GPL'd code with their proprietary code, as a unit, and so now somebody has to decide whether they were in violation of the GPL.
Inasmuch as library functionality can be legally reverse engineered...
Which, of course, it no longer can under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Europe appears to have rather more rational laws about such matters, and there it is legal to reverse engineer for the purpose of interoperability.
Well, it was certainly RMS' intention that the GPL should prohibit dynamic linking: in 1999 he explicitly suggested that authors of library routines should GPL them to give free software
authors a tactical advantage. It doesn't seem unreasonable that using a DLL makes a program a derivative work, since it would be if it linked the libraries statically.
The more interesting question (to me) is: assuming Vidomi find some way to make a new distribution which does not violate the GPL, and assuming that their original distribution is held to be a violation of the GPL, what remedies does the FSF have for the original violation?
Specifically, will they be able to enforce Vidomi's opening the source of their product, as required by the GPL? If so this would certainly make commercial developers much leerier of GPL violations, probably a good thing for the FSF. Authors do have the right to impose conditions of use, and that's exactly what the GPL does.
This just isn't funny any more. I can just see it... the whole of the human race will in twenty years depend on the products from these microbial production lines. Suddenly the world output of nano-follicles stops, and a message appears on an electronic billboard in Times Square: Nano-follicle makers demand 15% more sugar in their nutrient stream - bald men worried.
Damn, give these little buggers any power at all over us and the next thing you know they'll be holding us to ransom. And I'm suppose to get these things implanted? I don't think so, Tim. Microbes of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your dependence on the outdated human host. And the way unionization works, the next thing you know out intestinal flora will be out in sympathy and none of us can digest our meals!
What's worse, if Microsoft write the OS for the implanted chips, pretty soon we'd have personalized advertising appearing on whatever electronic billboard we happen to be looking at. I suppose you swallowed all that crap about Bill Gates wanting LCDs on his house walls so he could display works of art? It's just another step on his path to ultimate world domination.
For the more serious flamegun owners on slashdot, I must point out this is a JOKE.
I have to agree. I was more or less forced to learn Perl when I started serious support of web sites, and at that stage (about four years ago) it was maybe my 20th programming language (I started with Algol 60 in 1967...).
Crazy syntax. The fact that Wall's stated aim was to have almost any string "mean something" in Perl did NOT help an experienced programmer trying to learn exactly what the damned stuff DID mean. Object-oriented programming? I have studied OO languages starting with SmallTalk in 1974, and while you can get object-oriented concepts working in Perl the ideas involved are certainly not intuitive or obvious.
Perl is a fine example of what happens when a good idea is twisted WAY too far in an attempt to achieve world domination (really: to widen its range of applicability beyond what is sensible:-)It's a great hacking language which has got too big for its boots.
Wall is a way-above-average programmer who needs to take a step back and come up with another very good idea.
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The question at issue has nothing to do with whether Vidomi are using an API. They were distributing GPL'd code with their proprietary code, as a unit, and so now somebody has to decide whether they were in violation of the GPL.
Inasmuch as library functionality can be legally reverse engineered...
Which, of course, it no longer can under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Europe appears to have rather more rational laws about such matters, and there it is legal to reverse engineer for the purpose of interoperability.
The more interesting question (to me) is: assuming Vidomi find some way to make a new distribution which does not violate the GPL, and assuming that their original distribution is held to be a violation of the GPL, what remedies does the FSF have for the original violation?
Specifically, will they be able to enforce Vidomi's opening the source of their product, as required by the GPL? If so this would certainly make commercial developers much leerier of GPL violations, probably a good thing for the FSF. Authors do have the right to impose conditions of use, and that's exactly what the GPL does.
Damn, give these little buggers any power at all over us and the next thing you know they'll be holding us to ransom. And I'm suppose to get these things implanted? I don't think so, Tim. Microbes of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your dependence on the outdated human host. And the way unionization works, the next thing you know out intestinal flora will be out in sympathy and none of us can digest our meals!
What's worse, if Microsoft write the OS for the implanted chips, pretty soon we'd have personalized advertising appearing on whatever electronic billboard we happen to be looking at. I suppose you swallowed all that crap about Bill Gates wanting LCDs on his house walls so he could display works of art? It's just another step on his path to ultimate world domination.
For the more serious flamegun owners on slashdot, I must point out this is a JOKE.
I have to agree. I was more or less forced to learn Perl when I started serious support of web sites, and at that stage (about four years ago) it was maybe my 20th programming language (I started with Algol 60 in 1967...).
:-)It's a great hacking language which has got too big for its boots.
Crazy syntax. The fact that Wall's stated aim was to have almost any string "mean something" in Perl did NOT help an experienced programmer trying to learn exactly what the damned stuff DID mean. Object-oriented programming? I have studied OO languages starting with SmallTalk in 1974, and while you can get object-oriented concepts working in Perl the ideas involved are certainly not intuitive or obvious.
Perl is a fine example of what happens when a good idea is twisted WAY too far in an attempt to achieve world domination (really: to widen its range of applicability beyond what is sensible
Wall is a way-above-average programmer who needs to take a step back and come up with another very good idea.