Take the 2-minute tour ×  I'm planning on running an executable
as a child process in my program (e.g. using Ruby's popen or C's
exec() family of functions). However, the executable I'm
planning on running is licensed through the GPL.  The GPL, as I
understand it, requires that all linked code to GPL licensed
code needs to also be GPL.  But there's also an "arm's length"
exception, discussed in the FAQ:   Would runnning an executable
as a child process be part of this exception, or would it still
be considered "linking" for the purposes of the license?  If it
is considered "linking", how does it differ from running
program, like Nmap, from the a command line?  share|improve this
question think this covers it
programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/50118/… –  jk. Aug 22
'11 at 10:56 It doesn't seem to cover my question, which is
someone trying to get around the GPL by not linking, but using a
server. In my case, I can't link(AFAIK) because Nmap is a
program not a library, and using popen is like using C's exec