Comment by fsckboy
2 months ago
i don't see how either of those cases applies to the FSF and GNU's attitude on library linking; in neither case were they creating a combined derivative work.
if I make an ai driven viewscreen that you can stick your paperback book into and it gives you a better reading experience of the book, your paperback book is still in there and you can take it out. My viewscreen may not work without the book, but it hasn't merged/modified the book with anything.
I guess I would say that you've illustrated the problem precisely. Dynamically linking to a GPL library in your program clearly does not combine your program with the library: the library's still there, you can see the .so/.ddl file sitting separately on your computer, it hasn't been merged with your program and your program didn't modify it. Yet the FSF still claims it's a combined derivative work.
Am I misunderstanding something about the analogy?