Re: Mozilla/GNOME interoperability

[Mark Galassi <rosalia cygnus com>]

    Michael>  1. It does not violate the GPL to link GNOME apps
    Michael> against the non-free C libraries on commercial Unix
    Michael> distributions.

These are basic OS functions; there's a clause about that, and it
makes good sense (both historically and now) to be able to use free
s/w on a proprietary OS.

    Michael>  2. It does not violate the GPL to link GNOME apps
    Michael> against the non-GPL X libraries on all Unix/BSD/Linux
    Michael> distributions.

The X libraries are not GPL, but they use a compatible
university-style free license.

    Michael>  3. It does not violate the GPL to link gnome-python
    Michael> against the non-GPL Python libraries.

Python libraries are compatible with the GPL.

    Michael>  4. It *does* violate the GPL to link GNOME apps against
    Michael> the NPL javascript library.

NPL is incompatible with the GPL, and these libraries are not a basic
OS function.

    Michael> If my understanding is now correct, I have another
    Michael> question.  Are there any reasons for this besides:
    Michael> "because Richard Stallman says so"?

I hope I've explained the details, but since RMS crafted the GPL, I
guess ultimately it *is* because he says so :-)