Re: Need a few testers

[Andy McFadden <fadden@fadden.com>]

Scott Alfter <salfter@salfter.diespammersdie.dyndns.org> wrote:
> Does this mean the next version of CiderPress will be free as in speech,
> then?
> 
> (hfsutils was released under the GPL.  To legally distribute a version of
> CiderPress that contains code from hfsutils, it would need to be released
> under the GPL as well...unless you've made some other arrangement with the
> author of hfsutils.)

This gets into a very interesting area.  This sort of issue is one of
the reasons why I have learned to thoroughly dislike the GPL.

I'm currently using only the "libhfs" component of hfsutils.  The library
is built and linked as an independent entity; access back into CiderPress
is done through a callback interface I added.  Under the LGPL, I would
only be required to make my changes to libhfs available.

Under the full GPL, all of the code linked against it -- DiskImg.dll --
would also need to be made available as source code.  The viral nature
of the license could be taken to mean that anything that links against
the DLL must also be released, which would encompass all of CiderPress.

I've sent an e-mail to the author asking if he'd be willing to change
libhfs to LGPL.  In the worst-case scenario, I have the original "stub"
sources included, with #ifdef EXCISE_GPL_CODE bracketing, so it can be
disabled.

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