Re: re : rdesktop and MochaSoft

On Tue, Oct 28, 2008 at 5:09 PM, Peter Honeder
<e0126650 <at> student.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
> My question now (refering to the *maybe* from above), which I am unable to
> solve, is:
> does the GPL in the case of rdesktop forbid the development of applications
> for the iPhone because a development agreement with Apple has to be
> established before someone can on his own successfully build and run source
> code on the device itself?
> how does this compare to the fact the Windows users have to buy Windows
> before they can run GPLed applications on their PC? is this the same?
> how does it compare to GPL applications built for special or expensive
> hardware, is it not the same to buy special hardware or operating systems
> before beeing able to run a certain GPLed application?

  Now THAR'S a ball of wax.  :-D  I know many people defer to the
'Linux Theory' on this sort of thing.  It's acknowledged that the
Linux kernel is GPL, but can run anything, without the license
infecting.  I believe the there is a clear distinction between an
operating system and an application, regardless of the interfaces used
to allow it to function.

  But then again, when using APIs, it can get even funnier.  Look at
Microsoft an the older MFC libraries.  Can a GPLed application really
be distributed that is an MFC application?

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-- Thomas