[fluid-dev] Linking with GPL libraries (was: FluidSynth 1.0.9 released)

[David Henningsson]

Josh Green skrev:
>> Btw, do you know any other GPL code we (optionally) link to, more than
>> lash/ladcca?
> I hadn't even considered the issue with GPL versus LGPL.  What a mess.

It sure is. :-(

> The end of the configure.ac lists other optional packages.  Looking at
> the list, it seems readline is also GPL.
> 
> I admit being confused now though, since on the readline page it
> mentions it is GPL but that you can use it with "GPL Compatible"
> licenses.
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
> 
> So not sure what that is all about.  Hmm, it just occurred to me.  It is
> one thing to have your program link with a GPL library and its another
> to have it in turn link with other programs, perhaps that is the
> distinction?

The people we're messing it up for is not ourselves, it's for
applications which links with libfluidsynth AND are not GPL-compatible
(contains code released under MPL, a proprietary license etc). Assuming
Debian links with readline/liblash by default, they must provide their
own compiled version of libfluidsynth, which does not link with
readline/liblash.

Anyway this is a "gotcha" that we should mention somewhere in the
documentation.

> Does anyone use LASH?  I would miss the readline support, that is for
> sure.

As for readline, it could perhaps be replaced with editline, which is
under BSD license.

Looking it up in Debian (popcon) shows that:
104 people have installed lashd
688 people have installed liblash2
5790 people have installed libfluidsynth

>> Seems like a very good idea. I could also have use for some pointers to
>> why it was decided to fork the project into an 2.x branch.

Sorry about the choice of words here, I meant branch, not fork (even
though Wikipedia says that branching is a type of forking).

// David