Licensing (was: Re: [TCLUG:17728] Motif has gone opensource!)

[Mike Hicks <hick0088@tc.umn.edu>]

"Schlough, Mark" wrote:
> 
>         I don't know this but I'm just asking....
> 
>         Could a company write a proprietary program that uses GPL'd code in
> this way:
>         There are proprietary components and GPL'd components.  The
> proprietary stuff is distributed in one tarball and the GPL'd in another.
> And the install program assembles them into a hybrid system.  (Sort of like
> bricks and mortar... Proprietary Bricks and GPL'd mortar...together they
> make the structure)

You could probably do this if you actually had two separate programs
that communicated closely through shared memory or something, but you
aren't supposed to be able to link GPLed code into a proprietary
program.  However, you can link proprietary code into an otherwise GPLed
program, IIRC.  There are many GPLed programs that use Motif for a 
widget toolkit, for example.  The Gimp used to use Motif as its widget
toolkit, but the developers decided to attempt to move away from Motif,
and GTK (a.k.a. The Gimp Toolkit) was born.

At any rate, you might be able to pull it off, though you would have
much better luck mixing LGPL and proprietary code rather than
GPL/proprietary.

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[ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088@tc.umn.edu ]