Re: A plea for dynamically loadable extension modules

[Mario Lang <mlang@delysid.org>]

Nic <nferrier@tapsellferrier.co.uk> writes:

> Mario Lang <mlang@delysid.org> writes:
>
>> Is there any chance that we get the dynloading extention 
>> for 21.4?  If not, could you please explain why? 
>
> I think rms made a statement on this subject a number of months
> ago. The reason dynamic loading has not been included in emacs so far
> is that there would then be the potential of breaking the terms of
> the licence under which emacs is distributed.
>
> The GPL requires all code linked to emacs to also be Free. If
> dynamic linking was allowed that couldn't be gauranteed.

I do not fully understand this.  If the use of
non-free code in Emacs is explicitly forbidden, what is the problem then?
If someone would use a dynamic loader extention to integrate
commercial code with Emacs, he would just violate the license.

That is basicly the same thing you could do now already.
One could extend emacs with some code which links against
non-free libraries.  That would be a violation of the GPL,
and would be illegal.

> The reason guile can do it is that guile is licenced under the
> GPL+exception which allows for linking to non-commercial code.

Please understand me right, I do not want to link non-free
code into Emacs.  I want to link free code into Emacs.
So I do not understand why this is relevant.  I am not looking
for a loophole to allow linking of non-free code
into my favourite environment, what I would like to have
is the ability to interface with existing free libraries, like
the GNOME AT-SPI, without having to patch and recompile Emacs.

-- 
CYa,
  Mario | Debian Developer <URL:http://debian.org/>
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