I'm not exactly sure what the exact definition of 'linked to' would be? My understanding was that you could- for example, (if necessary) modify a GPL executabl

I'm not exactly sure what the exact definition of 'linked to' would be? My understanding was that you could- for example, (if necessary) modify a GPL executable so that it could be interfaced via unix sockets, and then use this to communicate with your own code. This would work exactly the same as if you created a gpl program to interface with a pre-existing closed-source program.. they would be two separate programs, working together for one aim. Am i wrong? Similarly, if i were to create an appliance with private code using linux, and included say samba for file transferring, this would not mandate the release of all code, as there would be no direct link between samba and the application code (although constituent parts of the same product). Otherwise how could closed source software be distributed with linux distros?