Question for GNU-GPL experts

[Zach Wegner]

I personally do not know any GPLed chess engine that exist in DLL form. I think it is safe and nice for all to change the source of DLL engine to make it UCI/Winboard compatible console program, so all programmers will benefit, not only your own GUI.

I don't either, but the Scorpio BBs are GPLed and are used as a DLL (or .so for those with superior operating systems). It's not like any significant legal attention has been given to the matter, but AFAIK it's perfectly legal to use it in a non-GPL program. I think that was part of the reason for it being a DLL instead of just some code that's added to the engine Nalimov-style (ugh).

[Aleks Peshkov]

I don't either, but the Scorpio BBs are GPLed and are used as a DLL (or .so for those with superior operating systems).

No, the current source code of Scorpio's endgame bit bases does not carry any copyleft or copyright notices.

It's not like any significant legal attention has been given to the matter, but AFAIK it's perfectly legal to use it in a non-GPL program.

I thought so before I had read FSF FAQ answering to this thread, but de jure it is not legal to use GPL library in non-GPL program.

[Dirt]

GPLed static libraries pretty clearly can't be used in programs that are distributed under a non-GPL license. The LGPL is used when this restriction is not desired.

...
As a practical matter, though, there are very few libraries in any Linux distribution that are under GPL and not LGPL or another permissive license. glibc is LGPL. So are X libraries. So is GNOME. OpenSSL is BSD-like. etc.

I'm talking commercial products that run under linux, not linux distributions themselves...

A commercial library that is released under the GPL? Is this something like MySQL, where a GPL program can use it for free, but other have to pay for a non-GPL license?