지피엘과 동적 링크 -자유·오픈소스 공동체의 법문화-

GNU General Public License(GPL), which was invented by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation, grants to the public the right of copying, distributing, and modifying GPL’d computer programs in pursuit of the welfare of the society. However, if it is construed too extensively to cover dynamic linking to the software libraries, GPL would become collide with the copyright system sustained by the state law. Unlike static linking, dynamic linking to the library does not copy the code of GPL’d library into the developer’s source program or its executables. In spite of the Free Software Foundation’s extensive construction of the GPL, the memory of user’s computer stands outside of the copyright holder’s control. Consequently, GPL does not cover dynamic linking to the GPL’d library in its valid scope of effect. Despite the potentiality of collision between GPL and state copyright law, the Free/Open Source Software(F/OSS) community has almost always conformed to the strict construction of the GPL, ignoring more generous interpretation by the state law. At the same time, F/OSS community never filed a lawsuit for about twenty years since the release of GPL version 2 against possible infringements of the license broadly construed. F/OSS community seems to hold fast to the hacker’s culture handed down from the 1970s. This cleavage between F/OSS culture and state law can be characterized as a sort of legal pluralism.