Re: GSL within Public Domain Software

["E. Robert Tisdale" <edwin at netwood dot net>]

Lowell Johnson wrote:

> My hope is that each module retains its original license.
> (This only applies to GPL-compatible licenses.)
> In other words, my application code would remain in the public domain
> and the GSL would remain under the GPL.
> Anyone wanting to pull my code into a proprietary package
> is welcome to do so, but they'll have to deal with rewriting
> the sections that call GSL functions.
> 
> This is one interpretation of what is said at
> 
>      http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
> 
> pointed out in an earlier message by Jason Beegan,
> although the GPL does state that
> any "derived" application inherits the GPL.
> It seems like there is room for more clarity.

It seems to me that these are the same thing.

> I'm sorry if this whole discussion is off-topic for the GSL mailing list. 
> This should probably be moved to gnu.misc.discuss.
> I did a Deja search there
> expecting this topic to have been beaten to death
> but didn't see anything that really nailed it down.

I tried to nail this down in this discussion last year.

	http://sources.redhat.com/ml/gsl-discuss/2000/

Apparently, the owners of the GSL interpret the conditions of the GPL
quite literally:

"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole.
 If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
 and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works
 in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply
 to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.
 But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole
 which is a work based on the Program,
 the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License,
 whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole,
 and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it."