[XviD-devel] it doubts...

[Vincent GOMEZ]

> A: A commerical application can be written to execute a specific
>    GPL'd application.
> 
> B: A commerical video encoding application can be written to utilize
>    a specific GPL'd video codec.
> 
> 
> Could somebody point out to me the difference between case A and B?
> 

It's a known problem of GPL. There's another corner case that GPL 3.0 is supposed to fix :

 - Create a derivative work from GPL code
 - Put it on a server
 - Add a web services layer that calls the executable and returns executable result.

Then you don't need to distribute your modifications because you're not distributing your binary but just the services.

Your A and B problem is simular to this one as offering service can be considered as a link against GPL code. But GPL has been written before anyone on earth has ever thought about such complicated systems to get things done in a computer. GPL 3.0 should be the answer to all these cases.

--
Edouard Gomez