Re: OFFTopic: GPL/Gtk Question

[Matthew D Allen <s2mdalle titan vcu edu>]

>Can Gtk be used in a closed-source commercial application as long as the
>Gtk code itself is not modified?  I'm not a judge or a lawyer, so do not
>respond if you're just going to provide a link to the GPL and tell me to
>RTFM.

Short answer - yes.  I have seen it fought both ways as to whether or not
you are allowed to statically link to GTK+, but you should be able to
dynamically link to GTK+ without a problem.  If you modify GTK+'s code,
you must make the source to your modifications available, but if you're
just USING GTK+, you don't necessarily have to release your source code.

By the way, the subject of what the GPL and the LGPL (which is how GTK+ is
licenesed, I believe) is the subject of countless flamewars, and in the
end, the only people that are RIGHT about the interpretation of the
license is probably the people who wrote the package - they have final say
on what is allowed with their code and what isn't.  But if you're just
looking for 1,000 other opinions on what's allowed and what's not, check
out the gnu.misc.discuss newsgroup sometime.  :)

David
http://opop.nols.com/ Free Software Development
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