RE: [gtk-list] Re: OFFTopic: GPL/Gtk Question

["Rostedt, Steven" <steven rostedt lmco com>]

Funny, how this is labeled off topic, when I was looking to do this with
my company, and came to the list to see.  I would like to give all my 
applications under the GPL but that is against my company policies.
Even though we give the source (and control) to our customers anyway.

I do have an application currently written in Motif and I was
trying to port it over to GTK.  Since I prefer GTK anyway. Although
it really doesn't matter that it is in Motif or GTK, I am making the
port over to GTK since I believe that it will help enhance productivity
and I personally believe GTK will replace Motif as the default GUI library.
Not to mention having more products using GTK makes GTK look
better.

> Well, that's why I put in the part about the library's authors -
> ultimately, it isn't up to Stallman.  It would be up to (I think) Spencer
> Kimball and Peter Mathis, the original authors of GTK+, plus whoever is
> hacking on it now.  They wrote it, they can license it.  They have
> licensed it under the LGPL, but if they want to tell you that you can or
> can't do X with their code, that's up to them.
> 
> 
	Sorry, but I have to beg to differ on this.  If you release code
under a License,
	what you mean and what the license states may be different. But the
legal binding
	is with the License not your interpretation of it.  If you state
that the code may be
	compiled in with a binary (static or dynamic) then it is allowed
under the License
	whether you meant to say it that way or not.  So, really it's not up
to Stallman,
	the Authors or anyone else to say what is legal or not.  It really
is up to the courts.
	What may be important, and what the authors DO have the power to do,
is
	bring you to court if they think you violated the license.  This
itself can be
	pretty devastating. So the real question is not whether or not it is
legal 
	(if the license says it is, which I think it does) but the real
question is
	whether or not someone will sue you.  This takes time and money on
	both parties and unless you do something horrible (like modify the
GTK
	code and don't release it) I don't think you have a problem.

	Going to court over something that can go either way (and more
likely
	the way to the one who statically included GTK) would have a
devastating
	affect on GNU products.  Management is already nervous about using
	GNU tools (believe me, they are!).  We don't need to have a court
case
	over something like this. If we did, I guarantee that all GNU
products
	would be taken out of the business world.