RE: Linus about GPL x BSD(long)

On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Patrik Stridvall wrote:

> But yes, I agree that it is preposterous, and I very much doubt
> it would fly in court.

I'm not clear what you mean by this.  You don't believe the GPL's viral 
mechanism would stand a court challenge?  I suspect it could survive in 
court against someone distributed a statically-linked binary with GPL code 
in the binary -- that binary is clearly a derived work of the GPL code, and 
without some sort of license, it's copyright infringement to distribute it.
I suspect the GPL would hold up pretty easily in that case, but IANAL.

On the other hand, dynamic linking is a very grey area, regardless of the 
FSF's views on the matter.  It's quite possible for a court to decide that 
only static linking obligates the author.  Or they might instead agree with 
the most agressive interpretation that the FSF uses.  It's a big unknown...

Deven