From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 13354 invoked by alias); 16 Jun 2005 15:41:30 -0000 Mailing-List: contact cygwin-licensing-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-licensing-owner@cygwin.com Received: (qmail 5849 invoked by uid 22791); 16 Jun 2005 15:32:19 -0000 Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:41:00 -0000 From: Igor Pechtchanski Reply-To: cygwin-licensing@cygwin.com To: "David E. Meier" cc: cygwin-licensing@cygwin.com Subject: Re: The term _linking_ in the licence In-Reply-To: <14363.193.17.199.5.1118934774.squirrel@193.17.199.5> Message-ID: References: <14363.193.17.199.5.1118934774.squirrel@193.17.199.5> Importance: Normal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-SW-Source: 2005-q2/txt/msg00001.txt.bz2 On Thu, 16 Jun 2005, David E. Meier wrote: > I am confused about the GPL licence. Both suggested sites for reading > before posting to this list about licencing only mention 'linking' with > other programs. > > I face the following siuation: > > I have written a program in C# that makes use of tools like ssh, rsync and > some bash shell built-ins. The C# program is the main .exe and does not > link to any of the GPL-programs while building and therefore the C# binary > does not contain any cygwin code. The GPL-exe's are called as system calls > at runtime via the cmd.exe. > > Does the C# program need to be redistributed under the GPL as well? AIUI -- no. Linking usually involves the linked parts running in the same memory space, while fork/exec (used by system()) loads the program in a separate memory space. But IANAL, and you can always say YANALATEYHSMBSI. There's also the GPL FAQ which contains an answer to this exact question, IIRC. Igor -- http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/ |\ _,,,---,,_ pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu ZZZzz /,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ igor@watson.ibm.com |,4- ) )-,_. ,\ ( `'-' Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D. '---''(_/--' `-'\_) fL a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-. Meow! "The Sun will pass between the Earth and the Moon tonight for a total Lunar eclipse..." -- WCBS Radio Newsbrief, Oct 27 2004, 12:01 pm EDT