[Uim] License question

[TOKUNAGA Hiroyuki]

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 19:05:34 -0700 (PDT)
Tian WenQiang <webpurchasing at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>     I have a question about license: If we connected
> (communication) with application that uses uim, which
> license dose the application should obey?

I think it's a delicate problem. If my understand is correct, a GPLed
library prohibits to be linked from an application which is not
compatible with GPL.

Because uim is a library, most case it is linked from applications.
Most of the uim are BSDL, but some parts of the uim are GPL because
they are derived from applications/libraries licensed under GPL.

So, in a precise sense, applications that linked to libuim must be
licensed under GPL compatible license.

But, I have a question. GPL part in the uim are data from GPL
applications. For example, pinyin table is derived from Emacs. They are
not program. Maybe we need not to apply GPL to such data.

To tell the truth, I haven't thought license problem deeply in the
past. I don't have certain answer now. Maybe it's a good time for us to
think about license.


Regards,

-- 
TOKUNAGA Hiroyuki
tkng at xem.jp