Private company and code salvation

[David Bateman]

Olaf Till wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 10:53:02AM +0200, David Bateman wrote:
>   
>> Olaf Till wrote:
>>     
>>> Maybe I am wrong, but if a company distributes proprietary mex-source
>>> code that compiles and runs with Octave, the company must surely claim
>>> that this is accidental, and the code is intended for Matlab. If they
>>> admit that the code is intended to run with Octave, they admit to
>>> violate the GPL. If the company provides funding or other support to
>>> Octave (wasn't this the original argument?) in order to keep their
>>> code running, how can they claim the code is not for Octave?
>>>  
>>>       
>> Strictly speaking yes, but I'd like some sort of clear statement that 
>> this is a situation that the Octave developers understand and will take 
>> no action against the company in this case.
>>     
>
> But I think this would help to circumvent the license of any GPL-ed
> library Octave is, or will be, linked with.
>
>   
Why? If we accept that the position that mex-file distribution as a GPL 
violation is indefensible due to the defense that Octave support is 
accidental, then it circumvents nothing that isn't already circumvented..

D.



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