Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!tut!santra!santra!sja From: sja@sirius.hut.fi (Sakari Jalovaara) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: What is a requirement Message-ID: Date: 20 Dec 89 16:59:17 GMT References: <8912201209.AA03583@wheat-chex> Sender: news@santra.uucp (Cnews - USENET news system) Distribution: gnu Organization: Helsinki University of Technology Lines: 21 In-Reply-To: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu's message of 20 Dec 89 15:23:34 GMT > Wrong. If your program requires GNU source to be linked in, it's all > covered by the GPL. > >If you don't use any of the advanced features of GNU's getopt such >that it can be linked to any getopt, then it's not covered by the GPL. But *is* covered if it *does* use features specific to GNU getopt? Can you (or anyone) cite references (announcements by FSF, whatever) on this? Specifically: is FSF claming that they have created programming interfaces that are their (dare I say it) intellectual property? Do programs that use, say, libg++-specific constructs not available in other C++ libraries, fall under the GPL even if distributed without any material covered by the GPL? How about perl scripts? It would be nice if a representative of FSF could give an official answer to this. ++sja