Re: License issue of bundle

[David Ayers]

Jeremy Tregunna schrieb:
> 
> On 06-09-17, at 18:03, Yen-Ju Chen wrote:
> 
>> As far as I understand,
>> if an application loads a GPL-licensed bundle,
>> this application has to be GPL
>>
>> Then here is a theoretical question:
>> 1. if a GPL-licensed bundle is automatically loaded through 
>> GSAppKitUserBundles,
>>    do all applications need to be GPL ?
>>   I guess probably not.
>> 2. If a GPL-licensed bundle provide a category for NSApplication,
>>    say [NSApplication -loadGPLBundle].
>>    then the GPL-license bundle is loaded through GSAppKitUnserBundles
>>    and an application use this method (-loadGPLBundle),
>>    does this application need to be GPL-license ?
>>    The issue is that the application do not need this bundle to
>> compile and execute.
>>    It only use it when it is available.
>>
>> I am just curious about how the GPL propagates through bundle
>> through automatical loading.

[snip]

> Keeping in mind that IANAL.

Same here, but I've seen these discussions often enough to understand
that if you want legal advice, ask one!

Developer and user mailing lists will hardly give you the answer or even
some vaguely qualified reassurance you seek.  Note that /I/ would expect
to obtain as many different answers as the number of lawyers you ask.
Law is not math and many factors will influence any concrete court decision.

Now if you just wanted to collect laymen opinions, then I think many of
us can direct you to quite a few mailing list archives to do some
research on how laymen can perceive the conditions of the GPL or what
constitutes a derived work (or propagation) especicially in devised
corner cases.

Cheers,
David