On Mon, Sep 16, 2002 at 10:37:03AM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
The license status of the readline package itself is not clear; certainly if you statically link to readline your program is only distributable under the GPL. However, if you dynamically link against readline, then you could conceivably follow the Linux kernel attitude and not GPL your code (although some at the FSF disagree with this interpretation of the GPL).
The status of programs dynamically linking to GPL'd libraries is indeed disputed, but I don't believe that the Linux kernel situation is relevant. They're not linking with someone else's GPL'd library, but offering their own interpretation of the GPL on their own code. Since the FSF hold the copyright on this particular library, it would be polite to follow their interpretation.