(moved to the fpc-other list)

Jorge Aldo G. de F. Junior wrote

Your module/lib is GPL but code linked to it must not be and this is not a violation of GPL.

It is a violation of the GPL if you distribute the result under a non-GPL compatible license.

Think about this : Can you think about the relationship of your modules versus someone else modules as being intrinsecally the same relation between linux and proprietary apps that happen to run in linux ?

Yes, because the GPL explicitly mentions that "system libraries" (which it defines as including the OS kernel) are treated differently by the license, exactly to avoid this problem. Otherwise it would also be impossible to legally run GPL programs on Windows or Mac OS X.

Jonas

PS: please use the fpc-other list for off-topic discussions, that's what it's for.

I wonder if I could throw in a thought here. If you have a GLPed program that has the capability of dynamically loading proprietary extensions, you've got to have a file describing the interface to each group of libraries. In most if not all cases this file- a .h, .inc or similar- will appear in both sets of code, and there is a risk that somebody could claim that having a file that they've received as GPL "infects" the source of the proprietary libraries.

I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that the safest thing is to ensure that files of that nature cannot be copyrighted by having the content being purely factual: non-descriptive parameter names and absolutely no comments. Obviously there could be copious documentation and/or an unsanitised variant of each file, but this should not be bundled with the sourcecode.

Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote

If you have a GLPed program that has the capability of dynamically loading proprietary extensions, you've got to have a file describing the interface to each group of libraries. In most if not all cases this file- a .h, .inc or similar- will appear in both sets of code, and there is a risk that somebody could claim that having a file that they've received as GPL "infects" the source of the proprietary libraries.

Many people claim a lot of things about the GPL, including that it can "infect" other source code while it can never do that (unless a judge would decide that as compensation for a GPL infringement, the infringer has to distribute their source code under the GPL; this has never happened until now, afaik, judges have only said "stop infringing the license").

That said, as far as plugins are concerned:
a) http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins b) as always, the GPL only covers distribution. So only if you distribute such a library, it has to be distributed under a GPL-compatible license (keeping the caveats of the FAQ above in mind). The GPL does not and can never affect the license of code that you combine with GPL software on your own system if you do not distribute it.

Jonas