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Suppose I create software that uses a library licensed under the GPL. If I distribute the software including the library, the software would have to be licensed under the GPL as well. But what if I distribute the software without the GPL library? Can the software then be closed source?

For example, I could achieve this by distributing the software without the GPL library, and making it download the GPL library's object files (for dynamic linking) from a third-party source when the software first starts up. In this way, I am not "distributing" the GPL library, so I do not have to comply with the terms of the GPL. The software can then remain closed source. Does this violate the GPL?

Note: By "GPL", I mean the GPLv2 or GPLv3.

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    Does this answer your question? Can my proprietary app automatically download a GPL-licensed binary? If not: What is missing? Commented Aug 6, 2022 at 12:37
  • @Martin_in_AUT I'm not sure that it answers the question. In this question, the GPL library is dynamically linked with the proprietary program. In that question, the proprietary program forks and execs a standalone GPL program. Commented Aug 7, 2022 at 2:38
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    So maybe these answers might be closer to your situation: opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2139/… and opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/12377/… and possibly opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/7291/… Commented Aug 7, 2022 at 10:19
  • Probably related: Effect of 'download separately' on GPL linking, Dynamic linking, bundling, and GPL Commented Aug 7, 2022 at 21:29
  • This would probably get more into a legal question area or legal grey area, but this seems to be kind of like distributing .torrent files (which are instructions to download often copyrighted materials). Your proposed program similarly contains instructions to download GPL code in violation of the license terms. So technically, neither case (neither .torrent files nor your GPL library downloader) is a copyright violation in itself, yet I still would not feel comfortable distributing either of those things from a legal standpoint. The intention of both seems to be copyright infringement. Commented Aug 8, 2022 at 9:40

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But what if I distribute the software without the GPL library? Can the software then be closed source?

No, your software cannot be closed source.

If the executable that your end-user runs on their device contains any part that is subject to the GPL license, then that license requires that all parts are available under a license that grants the same rights as the GPL. This means that if you make use of a GPL-licensed library, then you must distribute your application under a GPL-compatible open-source license even if you don't distribute the library together with your application.

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  • I am not sure if this applies to the library in the question, but it is worthwhile mentioning the "Linux-syscall-note" as an exception to the short generic answer. Commented Aug 10, 2022 at 11:29

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