[linux-audio-dev] image problem

[Paul Davis]

>   Help me understand what libardour does exactly. It may not be the way the
>code is arranged, but if I take the libardour database and break it into two
>pieces, the audio stuff and the GUI, and I obey the GPL for that code, why

FYI: libardour doesn't contain any GUI code at all, or have any notion
of any kind of UI at all.

>does something that I write that links to it have to be GPL'ed? My code is
>my code. Paul's code is his. He's made the interface public. Does the GPL
>license really say that if someone tries to talk to a piece of GPL'ed code
>they have to make all of their work public also?

"talk to" is a loose and inexact term.

if you link against a piece of GPL'ed code, and you distribute your
code, then your code must be made available under the GPL. it doesn't
matter whether you run-time, dynamically or statically link - if your
code makes explicit calls to code in the GPL'ed library, then you
can't release your code under anything except the GPL.

put another way: you can use my work as you let everybody else use
yours in the same way. don't want to play? no problem, just don't use
my code.

if your code can operate normally without my code - that is, mine just
acts as an extension to your already highly functional program - then
the dynamic linking "clause" in the GPL will allow you to link against
my code without requiring your release to use the GPL. GPL 3.0 *might*
close this "hole".

--p

ps. libardour is GPL'ed rather than LGPL'ed for precisely the scenario
    mark was outlining.