ok.
can we try to put some reality back in the discussion?
The rules as I understand them.
1) You, on your own system, can do whatever you want with GPL'ed software.
you can convert it to depend on _whatever_ you want, as long as you do
not distribute this modified code, you _cannot_ break the license, as
it explicitly grants you this priveledge.
2) You, as the author, can require that a peice of software (proprietary)
exists in order to use your GPL'ed software (This is what Richard Stallman
clearly said in his mail).
3) You, as random person, can modify and distribute GPL'ed software, however,
you may _not_ add restrictions to the software. So you can add motif to
emacs, but you'd better not make it dependent on motif. In addition, you
might (by way of courtesy) want to notify the author that you are doing this,
but you don't have to.
...
point three is the sticking point. When modifying a piece of software for
distribution, you can't add dependencies. If KDE did this with Gimp, they
would appear to be breaking the law. (Note that they could distribute the
perl script with the original Gimp code and not break any laws, speaking
of the mentioned conversion).
In general, courtesy counts.
-gordo
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