On Tue, 2011-01-25 at 22:34 -0800, John Millikin wrote:
The specific claim I'm refuting is that if some library or application depends on GPL'd code, that library/application must itself be GPL-licensed. This claim is simply not true. The GPL only applies to derived works, such as binaries or copied code.
Well, binaries (among other things) are pretty much exactly what's at issue here. I don't think anyone disputes that you can copy and paste sections of BSD3 licensed source code into a new project, but that wasn't the point brought up. If you actually install the thing from Hackage, you build a binary, which links in code from the GPLed library, and distributing the result is covered by the terms of the GPL. I definitely interpret the license field in Cabal to refer to the terms and conditions that govern distribution of the entire program or library as a unit, including binaries. If the people to whom I distribute that program are not free to further distribute it without offering source code, then I'm not giving it to them under the terms of the BSD3 license; so the license field in Cabal should note that.
I think you're getting mixed up between a derived work and dependent library/application.
I'm fairly sure I'm not mixed up. I think it may have caused some confusion that I'm talking about the entire program, and you seem to be (sometimes, at least) talking about individual pieces of source code. -- Chris Smith