[Gambas-devel] Non-free libraries and Gambas

[Daniel Campos]

I think it is possible, if you make your Gambas component GPL. You stack is:

Gambas interface (GPL)
Gambas component (GPL)
|
| dlopen()
|
Your library (Propietary)

If you create a GPL component (that is, you implement the Gambas
interface using GPL) and you load the propietary library at runtime
when the component is loaded (using dlopen, for example), you are not
braking any license. However, talk with a lawyer too prior to release
any code from your company, as I'm not an expert, but I can't see any
problem in that.

The same model is often used for Kernel modules: they create a GPL
module for the Linux Kernel, and then, once the module is loaded it
loads binary propietary firmware (some Intel network drivers act in
that way)

As you are just creating an Interface in your GPL Gambas module,
you're not revealing any of those big treasures stored in the secret
hidden code, but take in account that you'll probably need to maintain
that Gambas module using your own resources, I doubt Benoit will ever
include it in the main tree, and fixing errors is more difficult as we
can not test if the error is in the library code or in the Gambas
environment.

Daniel



2008/3/18, Rob <sourceforge-raindog2 at ...19...>:
> In my business, I may soon have to buy a license to a proprietary
>  toolkit that manipulates images in certain very specific ways for
>  which there is no free software equivalent.  I'll be signing an NDA
>  and won't be able to release the source (or if I can, it would be
>  under NDA as well, with some kind of fee paid to the toolkit vendor)
>  to the programs I link against this toolkit, which will be useful to
>  only a small fraction of companies in one particular industry anyway.
>
>  That said, I notice that gambas.h has the standard GPL notice at the
>  top.  Does this mean it's not possible to legally distribute Gambas
>  components that interface to proprietary libraries?
>
>  If it's not possible, no big deal, I'll be writing a C command-line
>  program that uses the toolkit anyway and if we need a GUI interface
>  I'll just run that program over a pipe using some communication
>  protocol I'll have to design.  But there are many industry-specific
>  proprietary components for VB, and as much of a supporter of free
>  software I am, I wonder if Gambas would be better off if the
>  interfaces used to create components were LGPL, not GPL.
>
>  I have pretty mixed feelings, because in addition to being
>  proprietary, frankly most of those VB components are incomplete,
>  buggy, poorly documented and just plain suck.  But some of them
>  fulfill the business requirements of few enough companies that no one
>  has written free software to do the job.  Having developers targeting
>  a Linux desktop use Gambas would at least get the Gambas runtime
>  installed on more machines.  So I'd be just as happy using IPC,
>  myself, but I figured I'd ask.
>
>  Rob
>
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