Re: [Mingw-users] [ANNOUNCE] mingw-utils-0.2 released

[<ph...@fl...>]

I'm interested in the licensing of exchndl. I've (experimentally) tried using 
it with a program of mine, and it seems to work quite well. However, as it 
uses BFD, which is GPL software, it must also be licensed under the GPL. Now, 
I haven't read through the GPL in the last few months, so I may be wrong, but 
if I load the DLL with a call to LoadLibrary(), am I not linking against it, 
and hence creating a 'derived work'? If I am, my program will automatically be 
licensed under the GPL. I'm not really sure yet if that's a good thing in this 
case. So what if I only use exchndl for internal builds? My understanding is 
that I have the right not to release something I create that becomes licensed 
under the GPL. So then, what if I was to simply not include a copy of 
exchndl.dll with my public releases. There is still a call to 
LoadLibrary("exchndl.dll"), but since the call will fail to load the DLL, am I 
still creating a derived work? Of course, this largely defeats the purpose of 
using exchndl at all, but it's an interesting question. Another interesting 
question is, if I do this, and one of my end users finds his own copy of 
exchndl.dll, and places it where my executable will find it, is *he* creating 
a derived work? Furthermore, if he doesn't have the source, how can he do 
that?




Thanks, Philip Bock




José Fonseca <j_r...@ya...> said:




> On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 at 09:55:42PM -0500, Greg Chicares wrote:


> > Exchndl was already included in old drmingw distributions.


> > Is this a new and improved version?


> 


> No, it's basically the same version. The main reason it wasn't included


> in mingw-utils-0.1 was because it's very tricky to get the autotools


> (automake and autoconf) to produce a DLL, and to use libtool for that is


> just a nightmare. The second reason was that until very recently I


> _never_ had received any feedback regarding exchndl, so I had the


> impression that nobody used it except myself. But I recently received an


> email from Heiko Gerdau saying he had an use for it. So with his help


> testing I've brought exchndl to life again.


> 


> José Fonseca


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