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POProprietary plug-ins for GPL programs: what about interpreted languages?
 

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    <p>I am developing a GPL-licensed application in Python and need to know if the GPL allows my program to use proprietary plug-ins. This is <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html" rel="noreferrer">what the FSF has to say</a> on the issue:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>If a program released under the GPL uses plug-ins, what are the requirements for the licenses of a plug-in?</strong></p> <p>It depends on how the program invokes its plug-ins. If the program uses fork and exec to invoke plug-ins, then the plug-ins are separate programs, so the license for the main program makes no requirements for them.</p> <p>If the program dynamically links plug-ins, and they make function calls to each other and share data structures, we believe they form a single program, which must be treated as an extension of both the main program and the plug-ins. This means the plug-ins must be released under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license, and that the terms of the GPL must be followed when those plug-ins are distributed.</p> <p>If the program dynamically links plug-ins, but the communication between them is limited to invoking the ‘main’ function of the plug-in with some options and waiting for it to return, that is a borderline case. </p> </blockquote> <p>The distinction between fork/exec and dynamic linking, besides being kind of artificial, doesn't carry over to interpreted languages: what about a Python/Perl/Ruby plugin, which gets loaded via <code>import</code> or <code>execfile</code>?</p> <p>(edit: I understand why the distinction between fork/exec and dynamic linking, but it seems like someone who wanted to comply with the GPL but go against the "spirit" --I don't-- could just use fork/exec and interprocess communication to do pretty much anything).</p> <p>The best solution would be to add an exception to my license to explicitly allow the use of proprietary plugins, but I am unable to do so since I'm using <a href="http://trolltech.com/products/qt" rel="noreferrer">Qt</a>/<a href="http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro" rel="noreferrer">PyQt</a> which is GPL.</p>
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