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The GPL never forbade creating a nonfree library with the same interface as a free one.
by chc 14y ago
The GPL never forbade creating a nonfree library with the same interface as a free one.
- jrockway 14y agoThat's my reading too, though I remember someone who wrote a MySQL API layer that was not libmysql was accused of violating the GPL. Amusingly, MySQL is now an Oracle product (though I'm not sure it was at the time).
- Sanddancer 14y agoIt had been MySQL's standard MO for a while. Their point of view was you either had to completely open source your product, or you had to pay them lots of money. Using it in an in-house webapp, or as you mentioned, reverse engineering the API, would get them knocking on your door threatening to sue you.
- chimeracoder 14y agoWhich is, incidentally, not too far from how GNU/Linux came to be - a free OS with the same interface as a nonfree[1] one. [1] AT&T was legally required to provide the source code of its OS 'for free', I'm not sure if the terms actually qualify as 'free-as-in-freedom', hence the impetus to create an alternative implementation.