[justcool393]

it's also worth bringing up some arguments made by Theodore Tso over this very issue in 1998[1]:

> Consider the following --- what defines "link"? Does an RPC call mean linking? What about shared libraries? What about making calls via the system call interface? What about running GPL'ed programs via the system() command from a commercial program? If you take things to extremes, a commercial program which uses the system() program will be interfacing with the GPL'ed /bin/bash on most systems --- is that considered "linking"?

> And if not, what is the legal distinction between what /etc/ld.so does when it maps a GPL'ed library into memory and the thread of control is temporarily tranfered from propietary code to GPL'ed library code when a library function is called, and what happens when a propietary program calls system() and the kernel maps /bin/bash into system memory, and the thread of control transfers temporarily from the propietary program to /bin/bash? You can see how things can get quite ridiculous quite quickly.

> [...]

> The FSF assertion also a very dangerous legal argument to make. If this is true, does this mean that if you write code which happens to make use of interfaces developed by Microsoft and implemented by Microsoft DLL's, that Microsoft somehow has a claim over your code which it could enforce via copyright law? What about any i386 assembly code which makes use of the Intel machine language? Does Intel now have a copyright claim on all i386 object code, and can try to prevent people from executing i386 object code on non-Intel processors? (After all, when a Pentium interprets your object code, one could argue that it is "linking" your object code with the Pentium microcode, which is copyrighted by Intel....)

> What the FSF is trying to advocate is one step down the slippery slope of interface copyrights, and we really, really don't want to go there.

i've seen arguments especially after the Google v. Oracle[2] decision and I think one in particular mentioned the sort of "reality distortion field"[3], which I found to be interesting, especially because a lot of open source projects that are GPL tend to rely on the good-naturedness of other users using their code in a way that's positively in spirit with the GPL. (which, to be fair, has probably helped open source immensely.)

but as Tso points out, therein lies a contradiction with GPL that at if its maximal interpretation to be correct, it's much much more dangerous, than if the GPL effectively is equivalent to the LGPL. but I don't think that (barring a world pre-this-case) this world is the one that is so. (no idea how the AGPL fits into this though, that sounds like a PITA.)

if I were ruler of the world, I'd say that symbol names are a matter of fact and thus should probably not be copyrightable by themselves. but then again I don't rule the world, and I'd probably have other things to change as well, even about copyright.

[1]: https://yarchive.net/comp/gpl_linking.html

[2]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30404270