Re: [smartquant] Re: GPL license violation? [GNU Scientific Library]

[Edwin Robert Tisdale <E.Robert.Tisdale@jpl.nasa.gov>]

Ferdinando Ametrano wrote:

> Once you reimplement GSL, you can say that
> the software does not depend on GSL for its functioning.
> But until you do, if you distribute software and say
> "this will only work with GSL
>  because no other implementation of that API exists"
> then you have a derivative work.
> quoted from the list archives -- original message by Mark Galassi

Mark Galassi is hardly an authority and he is certainly not impartial.

> Don't you think that
> the message "Can Technical Tricks Circumvent the GPL?"
> by RMS is clear enough?
> If your software *depends* on GPL software, it must be GPL.
> Technical tricks to circumvent this dependency are just that:
> technical tricks.

Nonsense!  Please cite and quote the passage
that supports your assertion that
Anton Fokin cannot distribute his software
without distributing the GSL without it.

Java programmers distribute byte code all the time
which may depend upon a GPL'd Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
which they do not distribute with their code.
You can't force them to release their Java source code
under the terms of the GPL just because it runs in a GPL'd JVM.