On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 09:24:29AM -0300, Humberto Massa wrote: > Despite the letter of the GPL and its post-amble, "linking", generally > construed as "stitching together (normally executable) object (as > opposed to source) files and resolving fixups so the result is an > executable file" does NOT make a derivative work. Derivative works are > made when you have intelligent *transformation* of the original work. > Linking is not intelligent -- much au contraire, it's fully automatic. > > So, no, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit -- IOW: the fact of embedding > the flasher and the flash in the same ELF file does not make the > combined work a derivative work on any of them; only a "collective" work > on both. > > Collective works are treated separately by copyright law. To distribute > a collective work, the distributor must comply with both licenses > individually (flasher=GPL, flash=proprietary). If the flash albeit > proprietary is redistributable, the combined ELF is Ok.
Is this collective work the same thing as the 'mere aggregation' that the GPL and/or GPL FAQ mentions ? > With the obvious caveat that it couldn't be distributed _by_ _Debian_. Well, no, but the flasher code with a script or makefile to link any random firmware in and produce a flasher would be. The combined work is also distributable in the non-free section of our archive. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
