"Michael K. Edwards" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 12:21:51 -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [snip] >> So in answer to your direct question: the unlinked binary isn't >> derived from any of them. The complete binary, including its >> libraries, included whichever one Debian shipped it with. > > No, it's not a derivative work in a copyright sense at any stage.
I didn't say it was. I said that the complete program includes the libraries. That is, the program called vim distributed by Debian includes libc, because when I say "apt-get install vim" I get libc6 installed onto my system, and when I then instruct my computer to run vim, it loads libc and some vim-specific code into memory. > That's a phrase with a legal meaning, and combining by any means that > isn't itself a creative act doesn't create one. I understand that quite well, thank you. You are ignoring the creative act performed by the programmer who arranged calls to functions within libc. That was creative effort on his part which critically involves a copy of libc. Put differently: my claim is not that vim is derivative of libc. My claim is that Vim includes a copy of libc! It may also be a derivative -- I don't think the vim-specific parts are, but the vim-specific parts plus the libc copy might be. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]