On 17 Apr 2011 21:15:39 +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote: > > I know well enough that I should avoid licensing all my original > software under the GPL or LGPL
This would be fine, but this is not quite what you do. You lead a long-time campaign against developers knowingly using GPL. > Fair enough, in that case, why did the GPL use the term "derived > work", instead of something less ambiguous and more commonly agreed > upon? Every license uses this concept of "derived work". "Redistribution with modification" in BSDL is nothing else than "derived work". The term "modification" is not any less or more vague than "derived work". Only a court can decide whether my software X is a "modification" (or "derived work" in legal words) of your software Y. Judges can do this by comparing code and applying common sense. > However, what is this elusive "derived work" according to the law? > Does including code constitutes derived work? Does static linking > constitutes a derived work? Does dynamic linking constitutes a > derived work? Are Linux system calls to the Linux kernel constitute > derived works? Are programs I execute using fork()+execve and then > do something based on their output considered derived works? If I > write a networked GPLed server, will my queries to it need to be > GPLed as well? Copyright Law defines "derivative works" and pretty much forbids them by default (without an explicit permission from the original author). There are some minimal fair use cases that are allowed, you should just go and read Copyright Law and this article if you want details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derived_work The FOSS licenses permit derived works by adding explicit permissions on re/distribution. > If the GPL was a less ambiguous licence, it would spell exactly > what can and cannot be done with it, rather than use the uncertain > "derived work" term. Wrong unbased claim. Please don't use it anywhere. > So you mean the text at the beginning of the NMAP licence does not > hold water in court. Judges will decide whether definition of "derived work" by NMAP does not conflict with the same definition in the law document. So neither me nor you can know whether it does hold water or not. > I didn't say the GPLed was not a FOSS licence. However, I said that > the NMAP people can interpret copyright so their GPLed software > will no longer match the Free Software definition. What you said is not certainly true. It is also possible that your understanding of what the 4 freedoms include is not fully correct. For example, do you have a right to run a program that generates the GPL'd code? Yes, you have (running a program is freedom #1, many believe that it is allowed as fair use, even by Copyright Law alone, without a need in FOSS licenses that add the remaining 3 freedoms). But do you have the right to use this output however as you want, ignoring the fact that this is actually a GPL'd code? I don't think so. The NMAP people similarly don't think that some complex cases are included in freedom 1, and they are even certain that Copyright Law agrees with them. And surely (regardless of whether the NMAP position will be found correct or not in the court) this does not affect GPL or any other license in any way. > If the GPL is using vague copyright law terms, then it is also, by > implication, vague. Not any more vague than other licenses. So can I hope you stop your anti-GPL campaign now? P.S. If you really want to know how vague are the software licenses, you should ask the lawer. The FOSS licenses are relatively old and were inspected by thousands of lawers. Let me know if you find a single respectful lawer that does not understand GPL and/or who thinks that BSDL is less vague in all real-life cases. Happy Passover. Regards, Mikhael. _______________________________________________ Discussions mailing list [email protected] http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discussions
