Title: RE: [Ethereal-dev] Purpose of plugins?
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of the GPL is such that plugins must be licensed under the GPL if they are linked or plugged in to a GPL product. Even dynamically linked "shim" libraries which sit between the GPL product and the operating system must be GPL. The GPL's reach stops at the standard operating systems calls.
Linux has a special provision in its license which allows kernel modules to be free of the GPL, so things like proprietary device drivers can be developed.
Other licensing alternatives are the LGPL, and the OpenBSD license. The latter is what Apple uses to support Mac OS X. Part of that OS is the Darwin project, which is open source, while other parts are proprietary. My impression of the OpenBSD license is that there are no requirements. OpenBSD code can be used in proprietary products, and source code can be withheld. This is only what I've heard, though.
My first impression of open source was that it was a welcome idea. I still feel that way. When I first read about the GPL, I thought that it reflected the same spirit I had. When I heard that Microsoft was saying that the GPL "spreads" into other products, I also heard at the same time from the open source community that this isn't true. Now I understand that it is true, in a way.
The GPL prevents the development of proprietary plugins and libraries, or it must spread into them. I feel that this is in contradiction of the spirit of open source. I don't think people ought to be forced to license their work a certain way, rather they should be allowed to join the community, and contribute what they wish, voluntarily. If people would rather write proprietary code and charge for it, that's acceptable, so long as I'm not forced to pay for it. I'd rather compete from the standpoint of which person's idea is better rather than which person's lawyer is better. The rest can be left to Darwinism.
-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Donaldson [mailto:stuartd@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 10:37 AM
To: Ethereal-Dev (E-mail)
Subject: [Ethereal-dev] Purpose of plugins?
In trying to go through and understand how and where to do some work on
Ethereal, I find that I am not really clear on what the purpose of the
plugin modules actually is.
Is it to allow modules to be prepared and distributed separately, outside of
the standard Ethereal package?
Can it be used to prepare proprietary parsers that might be distributed with
restricted licenses?
All of the above?
Are there any plugins which are not distributed as part of Ethereal?
Thanks...
-Stuart-
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