Re: Gnome GPL question

[Elliot Lee <sopwith redhat com>]

On 6 Dec 1999, Preben Randhol wrote:

> "Poletti, Don" <don.poletti@comverse-in.com> writes:
> 
> | Here's a "nuance" of the GPL I don't understand.
> | 
> | Linux is GPLed (the kernel and other supporting executables) but it anyone
> | can
> | write any kind of application, commercial, freeware shareware etc. to run
> | on Linux. I thought it might be because the linux code was not linked in but
> | don't all executables libc and other libraries?
> 
> Read the beginning of /usr/src/linux/COPYING 
> 
> | Where does Gnome fall? Is it a violation of its GPL to write a commercial or
> | shareware
> | Gnome app?
> 
> As long as you don't distribute your code under GPL, it would seem so
> as the libs are GPL and not LGPL as GTK+ is.

Uh, you are completely wrong there. All the GNOME libraries are LGPL'd.
The closest library to GNOME that is GPL'd is libgtop, which is not at all
required for creating any sort of GNOME app, but just is used by some of
the panel applets and gtop.

-- Elliot
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by
killing all who opposed them.