On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 06:48:17PM -0400, Simetrical wrote:
On 8/14/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Right, but can the GPL'd program integrate non-GPL'ed source? E.g., can MediaWiki use non GPL'ed source code?
No. Combining source code, at least in the view of the GNU Project, constitutes forming a derivative work of both sources of code. Any derivative work of a work used under the GPL must itself be licensed under the GPL. (This interpretation has not been tested in court, of course, but the WMF is pretty unlikely to disrespect it.)
Actually, I believe the answer is a conditional yes: if the license under which you acquire the code permits you to relicense it under the GPL and distribute it, then you can take that path.
I'm not sure any of the standardised licenses would in fact let you do that, but a private licence might, if so negotiated.
So it's not impossible, but practically? Not so much.
Cheers, -- jra