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by mattdm
604 days ago
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It's not necessarily about being "one program". It's this part: "The “Corresponding Source” for a work in object code form means all the source code needed to generate, install, and (for an executable work) run the object code and to modify the work, including scripts to control those activities." I get that it's really hard to make money as an open source company. (That's why I am one of your paying customers.) The exclusion you are putting on your SDK seems very similar to that of the "bitkeeper" version control software used for the Linux kernel for a short time. Look how that turned out. |
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GPL licenses have allowed so-called "mere aggregation", where separate programs are distributed together. Such programs don't have to be all covered by GPL.
On the other hand, if parts are intimately tied to each other such that they are effectively a single program, GPL applies to the whole.
The FSF commentary explains that the judgment depends both on the mechanisms and the semantics of the co-operation. Technical implementation details don't make programs separate if they are intimately designed to work together: "But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program."