A few comments

[Michael]

Ethan Blanton wrote:
> Some people do not respect or appreciate Free Software; you may be one
> of those people.  If that is the case, we will certainly disagree.

I absolutely do respect and appreciate free software, I just cannot see
how in this case free software is being hurt in any way, or how the GPL
is being violated.

If the text file that links to some other files is causing any person to
be unable to use pidgin, then yes, it is very bad and should not be
allowed, of course.

But I don't see how a text file that is not part of pidgin that a person
is able to chose whether to use or not is going to hurt the person or
pidgin.  Sure, someone might not agree with the skype license, but how
would that person be using skype in the fist place in that case?  If
they're not using skype, why do they have any interest in linking pidgin
to skype?

If they want to look at the source code and change it and use it for
their own good, it's still GPL and it's released as source, so they can
do that provided that if they release the modified version they provide
the source under GPL also.

Also, as far as the "is useless without pidgin and skype" making it a
derivative work, what if another messaging service/program was coded
that is GPL, that just happens to use whatever API/ABI function names
that the skype application uses, and you can tell the plugin via a
configuration option where to connect to for the messages.  Then the
plugin could work with a  GPL program, but it coincidentally works with
the skype program.  If that is "okay," then it seems that this is a very
pointless interpretation of the GPL, if all you have to do is make an
open source application that presents the same API/ABI to the plugin to
make any GPL application allowed to link to any closed source
program/library.

Perhaps my problem understanding this as being a problem is that it may
be impossible for someone to distribute just a single text file of their
own work that is a plugin.  It seems to me to be that all you would need
is the c file and perhaps a makefile, and it just includes the pidgin
headers and whatnot at compile time.  If that is, as I think it is, the
case, I just don't understand how this completely separate text file is
infringing on the GPL or anyone's rights, for that matter.