Re: Contradictiory directions

["Óscar Fuentes" <ofv@wanadoo.es>]

Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:

> Óscar Fuentes <ofv@wanadoo.es> writes:
>
>>> Then as RMS said, we should remove the feature wholesale, until a
>>> solution is found.
>
>> My point is that if the symbol trick is considered an acceptable
>> solution
>
> My understanding is that the symbol trick is considered acceptable
> because it will be more likely to hold up in court to mean that whoever
> wrote the non-free module fully understood that it had to be compatible
> with the GPL.

So someone at the FSF thought that creating a module, which requires
studying, understanding and complying with a bunch of technical
requisites mandated by the host application (Emacs or Gcc), could open
the possibility of a credible "I didn't care to read the license", but
using a GPL'ed library, that often requires less technical effort, is
not equally impacted by the same risk :-/

> But apparently SQLite modules, even those intended for use with Emacs,
> are not legally required to comply with the GPL, so that is out of the
> question here.

Nothing is legally required to comply with the GPL. The FSF does not
dictate law, it uses a license and hopes for the best.

The scenario of someone sneaking in a non-free SQLite extension against
the user's wishes is a bit far-fetched, to say the least. So we are
wasting a lot of energy worrying about how to effectively inconvenience
our users for "protecting" them from an unlikely event no matter how
much limitations are imposed on the feature being discussed. I thought
that the gcc/llvm debacle would be understood at this point.