>> The assumption that "everyone has" Microsoft Windows is incorrect-
>> the last MS OS I bought and used at home was DOS 3.3. It is also
>
>Ok let me rephrase that better "Everyone who would need that library to use
>the software..." - ie if you are on X11 you dont really need windows runtime
>dlls
>
>> Another question this raises- since there is not currently a free/open-
>> source Java runtime environment, is it currently "evil" to write
>> free/open-source Java programs? What about Visual Basic?
>
>I've not really thought about it in detail - assuming there wasnt a free
>source java runtime.
All this argument about what it is justifiable to make a
piece of GPL software depend on seems to be getting bogged
down in detail. The current language of the GPL means that
not only is it difficult to make a decision in many cases,
but you are aiming at a moving set of goalposts.
It seems to me that there are two basic choices to resolve
the issue.
Firstly, the authors of individual pieces of GPL software
could specify what pieces of non-free code could be used
with it - i.e. the developer of a GPL Windows application
would specify the standard windows libraries, etc etc. This
information would be distributed long with the application.
While it would have the advantage of giving the author
control, it would mean fragmentation of the GPL, making it
difficult to combine software in exactly the same way as we
are seeing right now with the GIMP and KDE, and there might
be difficulties with future updates
Secondly, the FSF could take responsibility for defining a
standard set of non-free stuff which it was acceptable to
make GPL stuff depend on. This would avoid fragmenting the
GPL, and would make sure that the list was kept up to date
to meet changing circumstances.
I still don't see what anyone can do about the problem of
people distributing non-free patches against GPL code
though....
Cheers,
Ganesh
-- ganesh.sittampalam@magd.ox.ac.uk http://users.ox.ac.uk/~magd0688 Life is a terminal illness PGP Key 0xFDE02725 Fingerprint 4CD6 D38E 0CB3 A9F8 2308 7637 7A3C 0565- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.altern.org/andrebalsa/doc/lkml-faq.html