Legal/Permission Question

[Bruno Medeiros]

Hum, BTW, how about this scenario, which I think is even more complicated:

Suppose there is a GPL project, and a company wants to make a commercial 
project based on the GPL project. GPL states that any derivative work 
must also be GPL. What if to circumvent this, a company packages its 
product into two parts: one that is the derivate work of the GPL 
project, and thus is also under the GPL; and a second part, which *uses* 
the first part, but doesn't know anything about the first part's source 
code?
Some might say that it depends on how the use is (static linking, 
dynamic linking, etc.), but the company can always change the use method 
to a more loose form. For example, if dynamic linking isn't enough to 
prevent GPL propagation (which legally, it still seam unclear whether it 
does), then ultimately what if the second part simply calls the first 
part as an external program?
It seems that in the end the use form isn't enough to determine whether 
the GPL propagates or not.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D