Re: [Richard Stallman <rms@santafe.edu>] Dynamic linking and the GNU GPL
Kyle Jones wrote:
> I've heard that the next release of XEmacs is going to
come
> with a dynamic linking facility. People might be tempted
> to use this facility to write proprietary C programs which
> are extensions of XEmacs--which would violate the GNU GPL.
Since when are extensions to XEmacs required to be GPL'd?
I don't see much difference between dynamically loaded .o files
and dynamically loaded .elc files.
One thing that crosses my mind is that someone can write a .el file
without using anything which is GPL'd. This would (IMO; IANAL) mean
that it wasn't bound by the GPL, regardless of what the GPL says about
such things.
To create a binary file (.o, .so etc) which could be used by XEmacs
would probably require a #include of lisp.h (and others), which would
(I suspect) subject it to the terms of the GPL.
--
Glynn Clements <glynn(a)sensei.co.uk>