Re: [Mediawiki-api] GPL/ Linking application against REST API requires to open the source

Volz Raphael wrote:

Hi -

I am a bit unsure about whether it is OK to have an external application calling the MediaWiki API and being able to maintain that this application is proprietary.

Does usage of the API trigger the virality of GPL ?

We can work around by talking directly to MySQL instead, but using the REST API would be much more elegant and change resistant.

Thanks for your insights.

Thanks

Raphael

I concur with the above. Using the API doesn't trigger the GPL virality. You're doing inter-process communication via sockets over a well-known format as XML or JSON. See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation

However, that may not be the case if you're using FauxRequest to call the API within the same PHP instance which loads Mediawiki.