[Haskell-cafe] [Cabal-devel] Cabal && license combinations

[Ketil Malde]

Dan Knapp <dankna at gmail.com> writes:

> There is a legal distinction between static and dynamic linking, 

Well, the obvious distinction is that a dynamically linked executable
doesn't actually contain any code from its libraries, while a statically
linked one does.

>  In particular, they assert that you are legally creating a "derived
> work" if you statically link with their library, and that your
> library, even if it's just a thin bindings wrapper, must therefore
> comply by their license terms.  

I disagree - the linked executable must, but not the wrapper by itself.
It's source code, i.e. text, thus a creative work, and therefore
covered by copyright - on its own.

> Of course, Haskell on most platforms and default configurations
> links everything statically!  

So this may be a problem for distributions, which ship compiled and
linked binaries.  But generally not for authors, darcs repositories or
Hackage, which only ship source code.

I guess you could conceivably say that compiling downloaded source code
constitutes copying, and is thus limited under copyright.  But I think
all the relevant licenses would be considered to allow this.

> So I believe this means that you have to
> comply by the licenses of all your dependencies!  

If, and only if, you wish to distribute the final executable.

> I think it would be a very useful and valuable thing for Cabal to
> detect this situation and warn appropriately!

Yes.  At least, it'd be nice if Cabal would tell you about the licenses
involved. But I'd let people do their own interpretations, that's too
much of a minefield.

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants