Technically, that would be in violation of the GPL as well. It prohibits dynamic linking.

Yeah i've seen companies that do that seperate process stuff and agree it violates the spirit.

But my point was, and i'm no expert at this, the empeg guys wouldn't be in violation because the empeg code wouldn't be linking or loading any GPLed code. The empeg software wouldn't have the ogg decoder, it would just have an interface for 3rd parties to use.

The *user* would be the one who introduces the GPLed code to the system, when they compile and install the GPLed ogg decoder plugin themselves.

Also, and again i'm not 100% on this, but i think as they are not distributing binaries of the ogg decoder, but simply using it for their own personal use, the user would not be violating the GPL either, as it only kicks in when you start to distribute binaries of GPLed code.

Infact, if someone distributed binarys of just the plugin, with source available, would they be in violation? The plugin by itself, would just be an implementation of an interface, it wouldn't include any non-GPL code.