Linking to GPL Software
It is appropriate to look within the four corners of the GPL itself for guidance on this question about program linking.
The word link actually occurs only once in the official GPL, way at the end in the last paragraph of a nonbinding section called “How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs.” This paragraph deals with a different license, the LGPL, which I will describe in due course.
There are other provisions of the GPL that refer to work based on the Program. Here is the first possibly helpful reference:
...Output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does. ...
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