Re: Further on MEX

[David Bateman]

Aravindh Krishnamoorthy wrote:
> > There are certainly risks in accepting a MEX like ABI for Octave that
> > doesn't fall under the GPL, though it would expose any of liboctave or
> > liboctinterp. However I believe it would be a selling point for Octave in
> > certain circumstances
> >     
>
> Would you please explain the risk in the point above?
>   
From Octave's point of view accepting that the Octave MEX ABI doesn't 
invoke the GPL, might be considered as weakening the protection of 
Octave under the GPL.

For the developer of a proprietary MEX file, can they be sure that a 
previous developer of Octave might consider that the MEX ABI exclusion 
might be illegitimate and take independent action against the MEX file 
developer.

Frankly, the moment we included the MEX API in the core of Octave itself 
and set the precedence that the MEX API effectively didn't invoke the 
GPL, at that point there was good grounds for protection of any 
proprietary distribution of MEX files for use with Octave.


D.

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