[Freegis-list] Lx-Viewer (DWG viewer for Linux)

[Guy Edwards]

apologies if this is drifting OT for this group

On Mon, 2002-11-25 at 19:13, Bernhard Reiter wrote:
[snip] 
> 	If you want your program to link against a library not covered by
> 	that exception, you need to add your own exception, wholly outside
> 	of the GPL.

Hi Bernhard,
All just my opinion of course, and I'm not a programmer so sorry if I've
missed something obvious....

I'm unsure of what form this exception should take. Can you give an
example of a program with such an exception? I'm not disputing it I just
want to see how someone else has done it.

Wouldn't the source still be GPL, the code only becoming tainted once
you compiled it? Remember we aren't allowed to distribute the OpenDWG
code with our source.

> 	Adding this exception eliminates the legal issue, but does
> 	nothing about the more serious problem of using a non-free library:
> 	your program won't be fully usable in a free environment. 

Something to consider for the future. Finding an alternative to the
OpenDWG libraries would mean a lot more work. I seem to remember
something about KDE originally coming under heavy fire for using
non-free libraries which was cured by the license for the libraries
changing in the end? Maybe it's worth sitting tight for now and waiting.

Guy