"Pimp my iPod"

[saratoga]

I think the GPL people would argue that all WPSs are available under the GPL, because they're code thats combined with a GPLed piece of code.  In fact, I believe they already have when asked by various foobar plugin developers about using GPL plugins:

I assume that the plugin interacts deeply with the internals of the main
program. In this scenario, person Y has violated the GNU GPL. The GPL
doesn't concern itself with technical details about how two programs are
combined; so the fact that person Y didn't need to link any
GPL-incompatible code directly to the GPLed library is irrelevant. The
GPL only cares about whether a given work is based on GPLed code. If it
is, then the final, combined work must all be licensed under the terms
of the GPL. Person Y has failed to follow this requirement.

Since the WPS here is combined with the GPLed code in Rockbox, I believe it must in turn be under the GPL (in addition to whatever else).  

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=36153#

[Llorean]

No, the WPS isn't code in that way. It's a text file parsed by Rockbox, and can be under whatever license it'd like to be.

Otherwise, any program compiled by GCC would automatically be GPL licensed, independent of anything else, wouldn't it?

[saratoga]

No, the WPS isn't code in that way. It's a text file parsed by Rockbox, and can be under whatever license it'd like to be.

As they say, it doesn't matter how the two are combined, only that the final product is a combination of the two works.  In this case the final product is a specific user interface which cannot function without both the WPS and the GPLed code in Rockbox, therefore the WPS is also under GPL because the author has allowed it to be combined with Rockbox.  The question and response in that thread seem to make it clear that they consider any author merely targeting a GPLed app to be implicitly GPLing his work when he acknowledges interoperability with the app.

In short, I believe the FSF's position seems to be that the technical details of how components are combined (or even what the components are) is irrelevant.  All that matters is that they form one whole work, or even that they can be used together unmodified to form one whole work.  My assumption here is that they want to avoid people cheating the GPL by releasing closed source apps as plugins, and then leaving it up to users to combine the binaries.  

Otherwise, any program compiled by GCC would automatically be GPL licensed, independent of anything else, wouldn't it?

Yes I believe it would.  In the case of GCC, the GPL actually makes an explicit exception for compilers and OS libraries:

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

I read that to mean that they acknowledge that compilers and the OS are a special case, and that they should not be considered to be components of the final work (assuming the final work is not an OS or a compiler, so that you can't include gcc or linux in your closed source compiler/OS, but you can develop and compile with them).

Thats just my reading, though I believe the example of GPLed plugins in a closed source app with a GPL compatible SDK is pretty damn close to what we're talking about, so I doubt the FSF would say much different if you asked them.  

[Llorean]

You can't implicitly license a product, nor can you implicitly release copyright on something. If you acknowledge that it is interoperable with a GPLed piece of software, that is different to actually "linking" it in a programming sense. In their case, they're referring to actually linked code. In the case of WPSes in Rockbox, there is no link whatsoever. The WPS does not in fact require Rockbox to exist, nor link to Rockbox code at all, rather Rockbox itself makes use of the WPS files. Now, what would actually do it is if the WPS language were in fact licensed exclusively in a way that only permits WPSes to be GPLed. Since there's no explicit license on that, it's somewhat iffy.

But again, this is just my opinion. There's no actual linked code, and WPSes are not based upon GPLed code, in the connotation of one program being based upon the code of another. The quote that you've made actually boils down to "You don't have to redistribute standard libraries or compilers, as an exception to the usual GPL cause requiring you to distribute everything necessary to build the program" and is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

To simplify it somewhat: A GPLed webbrowser does not make a webpage automatically GPLed, simply because the combination of a functioning webpage plus the browser forms a full functioning application.

So really, what needs to be looked at is: Does WPS language have an explicit license regarding its use? At the moment, I don't see an explicit license for the content of the wiki (FDL like the manual?), and even then, that would cover only the page describing the language, not the actual language itself. I'm not really sure how a license on such a language works, honestly.

[saratoga]

You can't implicitly license a product, nor can you implicitly release copyright on something. If you acknowledge that it is interoperable with a GPLed piece of software, that is different to actually "linking" it in a programming sense. In their case, they're referring to actually linked code.

No they're not!  Read the quote I posted above:

"The GPL doesn't concern itself with technical details about how two programs are combined; so the fact that person Y didn't need to link any GPL-incompatible code directly to the GPLed library is irrelevant."

The FSF does not believe linking to GPL code is required.  The fact that Rockbox does not link to the WPS does not matter.

In the case of WPSes in Rockbox, there is no link whatsoever. The WPS does not in fact require Rockbox to exist, nor link to Rockbox code at all, rather Rockbox itself makes use of the WPS files. Now, what would actually do it is if the WPS language were in fact licensed exclusively in a way that only permits WPSes to be GPLed. Since there's no explicit license on that, it's somewhat iffy.

I understand exactly what you're saying, and my own belief is that would be most logical.  However, the FSF has made it clear that the GPL does not work this way.

[Llorean]

The problem we've got here, is that what you're quoting is about someone releasing code under the GPL when it's linked to something GPL incompatible. The other thing you're missing is that this is referring to linking programs.

WPSes are interpreted documents (like webpages) and are not program code. As I said, how does your instance take into account webpages (interpreted HTML text documents, much more closely related to WPSes than foobar plugins).

[Febs]

There is a FAQ that specifically addresses LLorean's point:

If a programming language interpreter is released under the GPL, does that mean programs written to be interpreted by it must be under GPL-compatible licenses?
    When the interpreter just interprets a language, the answer is no. The interpreted program, to the interpreter, is just data; a free software license like the GPL, based on copyright law, cannot limit what data you use the interpreter on. You can run it on any data (interpreted program), any way you like, and there are no requirements about licensing that data to anyone.