Hi!

 ac> Public domain status is compatible with the GNU GPL."

In this context, compatible means that I can distribute a Public domain
module along side or integrated with a GPL module. It means that if you
distribute something as GPL, it may have parts in PD included. 

But I was talking about the other way round:

If I'd distribute a binary compiled version of Msged and don't indicate, in
the distribution file, how the user will be able to get the full source of
all that is required to build Msged, I will be in violation of GPL, if
SMAPI were licensed under GPL.  I will even violate GPL if I indicate where
to find the sources for SMAPI, but not the sources for Msged. That's the
"cancer"-like character of GPL: It forces itself being used for
everything that it gets in touch with. 

This is acceptable as long as we are talking about the "work based on
another work" thing, i.E. if I take a program, say hpt (which is GPL),
and then make a Windows GUI tosser out of it, i.E. I write a nice frontend,
but all the logic is still the hpt code, then it is reasonable that the
entire source of the resulting project should be available, including my
new GUI code, and the entire thing should be under GPL. This prevents abuse
of the hard work we did to write hpt, and it assures that if the guy who
makes the windows GUI version also fixes some bugs in the hpt logic, we
will able to see this and integrate it back into our command line version.

But this license behaviour is is not acceptable at all for libraries,
because a library, and the program using a library, are clearly separate
things. I refuse to being forced to apply GPL to Msged only because I
happen to use a GPL'ed library.

See, I, personally, would be happy if somebody made a GUI-based version out
of Msged EVEN if he does not release the source of what he did. This is my
personal viewpoint. If it were not Msged, but some tool with probable
commercial use, I'd probably do it under GPL, because I don't want that
others earn money for what I did. But in the case of Msged, you can't money
for it anyway, and the appearance of a GUI-based verison of Msged would be
a benefit for Fidonet as a whole even if it were not open-sourced. Of
course I'd like to have it open-sourced, and I'd try to talk everybody into
making it this way, but if he doesn't want, than I think it is better to
have it closed-sourced than not at all - for the benefit of Fidonet.

Eventually, I am sure that the GUI guy will understand my reasoning and
release his source, even if I don't use GPL to force him to do so. But
maybe he wouldn't start development at all if he were forced to? So, what
is better?

As I said, if money were a factor, I'd use GPL, because if I guy wants to
earn money, he usually get's less receptive for any reasoning. But money is
not involved in our case.

Therefore, I don't want to apply GPL to Msged, but leave it public domain.
But if I'd distribute Msged linked to a GPL'ed library, I WOULD have to
release Msged under GPL. That's the bad thing. If the library, on the other
hand, is LGPL, and can keep Msged public domain, and the guy making the
Windows version can keep his thing closed source, as long as we indicate
that we use a library licensed under LGPL, and where to get the sources for
that library only.

Regards,
Tobias.

--- Msged/MAC 6.1.2