[LAD] GPL Violation Alert! - Sorry if this is a duplicate

Bob Ham rah at bash.sh
Wed Aug 5 12:32:45 UTC 2009


On Tue, 2009-08-04 at 15:55 +0100, Chris Cannam wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 3:45 PM, Dr Nicholas J
> Bailey<n.j.bailey at elec.gla.ac.uk> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 04 Aug 2009 09:10:21 Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> >> - Is a program that loads LADSPA plugins (at run time) a
> >>   'derived work' ? Note that anyone can create a 'clean'
> >>   version of ladpsa.h, as some people did with the VST
> >>   headers.
> >
> > My understanding is "Yes". If it's linked, it's GPL'd. You can run a separate
> > process and communicate through sockets etc, that'd be separate. But AFAIK,
> > same memory space => derived work.

> If your interpretation was correct, then I could require Cubase to be
> GPL'd by writing a VST plugin for it and publishing it under the GPL.
> This would obviously be absurd.

[ #include <ianal.h> ]

Just to chime in here: the issue is distribution.  The address space of
the running Cubase application would constitute a "derived work".  It
involves copying (the binary image into memory) so a license is required
but as I understand it, that copying isn't restricted in the GPL like
distribution is.

However, if a user took an image of the running application's address
space and then distributed that image to a third-party, the user would
be in violation of the plugin author's copyright.  I would note as well
that with the proliferation of x86 virtual machines, this isn't actually
such a far fetched idea.

-- 
Bob Ham <rah at bash.sh>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-dev/attachments/20090805/1083fc6e/attachment.pgp>


More information about the Linux-audio-dev mailing list