GPL license (possible solution)

[MR K P SCHUPKE]

Having Read the GPL license one solution for binary distributions may be to
install in two packages - one for any GPL'd stuff, and one for the rest - if
these
are aggregated onto the same media the GPL only applies to the originally
GPL'd
stuff. This would be enough if the libraries are dynamically linked. If
statically linked
you could always distribute a ghc.o in one package and the library.a files in
another,
and do a final link as part of the installation process (the user must have a
linker to
run ghc anyway).

Keean Schupke

Martin Norbäck wrote:

> I have a problem with the readline license that applies to ghc, and
> programs compiled with ghc.
>
> The readline library is under the GPL license. This means that any
> program (including ghc) that links with this library must itself be
> licensed under the GPL.
>
> This is very unfortunate. I would suspect that this only applies if you
> actually use the Readline module, so I can just avoid that.
>
> However, using -package lang (to get the GetOpt module) links with
> -lreadline even though it's not necessary. So the resulting binary is
> dynamically linked with libreadline. My meaning is that this is not a
> license violation of readline, but I am no lawyer, and I recall Richard
> Stallman of the FSF says differently.
>
> Linking statically with -lreadline may be a solution, since the linker
> is smart and removes unused code in statically linked libraries. If only
> I could be sure that that's the fact.
>
> I think most ghc users have better things to do than to track licenses
> of libraries that ghc links your program to, so I suggest that the
> Readline module is either removed or moved to a separate package, so
> that there is no doubt that it's not linked in.
>
> Another question is what to do with ghc, ghc uses readline and is not
> licensed under the GPL. A possible GPL violation, at least it would be
> according to Richard Stallman.
>
> Regards,
>
>         Martin
>
> --
> Martin Norbäck                         Safelogic AB
> martin.norback@safelogic.se            Stena Center 1C
> +46 (0)31 772 81 70                    S-412 92 GÖTEBORG
> http://www.safelogic.se                SWEDEN
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