Re: Announce: GPL Framework centered on Postgres

Kenneth Downs <ken(at)secdat(dot)com> writes:
> If it turns out that nobody can release a closed source app, I will
> definitely reconsider and look again at LGPL, but I am not convinced you
> cannot do so.

> If you seek to provide a closed source app that is built upon Andromeda,
> you are required to provide the source code to Andromeda itself.
> However, your app is not a derivative work in the strict sense because
> your code is not mixed in with mine in any sense.

This may well be what a sane person would think after perusing the
license text, but you need to be aware that the FSF takes a much more
expansive reading of that text. AFAIK those details haven't been tested
yet in any court of law --- but until a reading is settled by court
precedents, people tend to look to the FSF's interpretation. And the
FSF is on record as saying that if code A depends on code B then B's
GPL license infects A, even for pretty weak values of "depends".
You should carefully read http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html,
which contains statements such as

If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function
calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a
single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the
main program and the plug-ins.

I don't have anything against the GPL's goals, but those goals are very
clearly that the entire software universe should be GPL code. If that's
not what you have in mind, then you should think twice about licensing a
software component (as opposed to a standalone product that isn't meant
to have other code depending on it) under GPL.

regards, tom lane