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Re: The term _linking_ in the licence
- From: Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>
- To: "David E. Meier" <dev at eth0 dot ch>
- Cc: cygwin-licensing at cygwin dot com
- Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:32:17 -0400 (EDT)
- Subject: Re: The term _linking_ in the licence
- References: <14363.193.17.199.5.1118934774.squirrel@193.17.199.5>
- Reply-to: cygwin-licensing at cygwin dot com
On Thu, 16 Jun 2005, David E. Meier wrote:
> I am confused about the GPL licence. Both suggested sites for reading
> before posting to this list about licencing only mention 'linking' with
> other programs.
>
> I face the following siuation:
>
> I have written a program in C# that makes use of tools like ssh, rsync and
> some bash shell built-ins. The C# program is the main .exe and does not
> link to any of the GPL-programs while building and therefore the C# binary
> does not contain any cygwin code. The GPL-exe's are called as system calls
> at runtime via the cmd.exe.
>
> Does the C# program need to be redistributed under the GPL as well?
AIUI -- no. Linking usually involves the linked parts running in the same
memory space, while fork/exec (used by system()) loads the program in a
separate memory space. But IANAL, and you can always say YANALATEYHSMBSI.
There's also the GPL FAQ which contains an answer to this exact question,
IIRC.
Igor
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