Re: GPL and Plug-INs and XML\Ada

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

Fair enough, but I have a question: At some point in the process of linking
my app such that it will work with your DLL, somewhere there has to be
something that scans over the interface to your DLL & makes sure my app is
compliant with that interface. Correct? There *may* be some kind of
copyright issues involved here - but certainly some rather convoluted ones.
Id est, I have to read over your specification and "copy" from that
procedure names, parameters, etc. IMHO, that would be a *real* stretch of
the concepts of copyright, but then, I'm not a lawyer.

I still don't think it would hold up in court and I'm wondering if anyone
has actually ever brought a case. Until there is some case law on the
subject, its hard to say exactly what is correct. Until you have at least
one judge making a ruling on it, it could go in any direction.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/



<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message
news:t33I6.36036$Jh5.32810476@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com...
>   A linker is a utility that merges multiple object files together
> into a single executable file.  That exe file could be distributed.
> A loader takes a file containing a chunk of code and brings it into
> memory, possibly relocating addresses and such, so the code can be
> executed.  (A "linking loader" does both.) So a DLL, regardless of
> the name Microsoft gave it, is a module which can be loaded and
> executed.  It is not "linked" to become part of distributable object,
> but is loaded to be executed.  A DLL is basically the same as a
> subroutine on a library tape, to be loaded dynamically by a program
> that needs to use it.  So, unless the word "linked" is specifically
> defined within the GPL to have a non-standard meaning, it must be
> understood in the way it's normally been used in software for the
> last 40 years.  A DLL is loaded, not linked.