GPL License Question

[John Hancock-2]

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Hi,

I'd like to ask a question about a licensing issue.

I have a proprietary app (foo) that ships with a GPL apps (bar and baz), as well as their source. When foo is installed it is setup to call bar and baz (separate binaries). However it can be setup to call other apps (not bar nor baz but others). Foo is agnostic but bar and baz are shipped and by default the system is set use them. Does Foo break the GPL?

Some real life parallels for this scenario are: a proprietary bash script calls gawk. A proprietary C program calls gawk.

Really appreciate your time,

John

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[Chuck Swiger]

On Jun 26, 2007, at 6:06 AM, John Hancock wrote:
> I have a proprietary app (foo) that ships with a GPL apps (bar and  
> baz), as well as their source. When foo is installed it is setup to  
> call bar and baz (separate binaries). However it can be setup to  
> call other apps (not bar nor baz but others). Foo is agnostic but  
> bar and baz are shipped and by default the system is set use them.  
> Does Foo break the GPL?

Nope.  If you redistribute the binaries for bar and baz, you would  
need to honor the GPL with regard to them, and be willing to provide  
source for bar and baz if asked, etc, but "mere aggregation" does not  
imply that the GPL terms would apply to foo.

> Some real life parallels for this scenario are: a proprietary bash  
> script calls gawk. A proprietary C program calls gawk.

Sure.  All kinds of proprietary software running under Linux (for  
example) does such things.

--
-Chuck

PS: Apply salt and the Obligatory IANAL disclaimer, season to  
taste.  :-)

[Matthew Flaschen]

John Hancock wrote:
> Hi,I'd like to ask a question about a licensing issue. I have a
> proprietary app (foo) that ships with a GPL apps (bar and baz), as
> well as their source. When foo is installed it is setup to call bar
> and baz (separate binaries).

IANAL, but I think if they're completely separate binaries that just run
exec("/usr/bin/baz") or equivalent, it's mere aggregation.  Even if
there are command-line options, as long as you're coding to the
documented options (rather than using specific knowledge of baz's inner
workings), it should still be aggregations.

However, in general this is a very difficult issue.  If it's important
to you, you should see a lawyer.

Matt Flaschen