Anticheat vs. GPL

[inquisitive]

As per the GPL FAQ (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html):
"If you want your program to link against a library not covered by the system library exception, you need to provide permission to do that."

As I understand it, Anticheat is dynamically linked to by a Quake II client, and in all likelyhood that client will fall under the GPL.
As Anticheat would not qualify as "anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs" (per the GPL), this seems like a violation.

Sorry if I missed something obvious here...

[R1CH]

The FAQ is for the GPLv3, the actual text of the GPLv2 under which Q2 was released has no mention about dynamic linking:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

[QwazyWabbit]

The original Q2 code was released under GPLv2.

The anticheat dll runs on Windows, not Linux. Windows is not a GPL system.
R1Q2 client, a GPL program links to a non-GPL library (anticheat), which has a public interface but private codebase. The library links to proprietary system code in Windows which also has a private codebase and public interface.

If Q2 itself were to be interpreted as "linking to non-GPL code" (i.e., Windows) then it cannot be used under the GPL.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIDemandACopy

Anticheat is distributed separately from r1q2 and any client that uses it.
The use of anticheat is not a requirement for using the GPL r1q2 client. In other words, use of anticheat is optional.

Anticheat itself doesn't need a GPL license.

[inquisitive]

Okay, thanks!

[joey]

The anticheat dll runs on Windows, not Linux. Windows is not a GPL system.
R1Q2 client, a GPL program links to a non-GPL library (anticheat), which has a public interface but private codebase. The library links to proprietary system code in Windows which also has a private codebase and public interface.

What? Your answer could be just fine without this nonsense.