Re: Need a few testers

[salfter@salfter.diespammersdie.dyndns.org (Scott Alfter)]

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In article <43ebe048$0$58112$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net>,
Andy McFadden  <fadden@fadden.com> wrote:
>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.

It is a sticky area in which you can get stuck if you're not careful.  The
small handful of programs I've written on my own time are usually GPL'd. 
They're mostly complete programs, portions of which aren't likely to be
stuck in someone else's program.  

Since I also write code for a living, though, I have to make sure the stuff
I do at work doesn't step on anyone's toes.  About the only thing close to a
major rewrite I've had to do was to switch a server program that needed
database access from MySQL (the C++ library for which is GPL'd) to
PostgreSQL (the C++ library for which is under the more
closed-source-friendly BSD license).

>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.

Just hope that he doesn't worship at the Church of RMS. :-)

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/            Top-posting!
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