On 2006-05-13, Alfred M. Szmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Now, I, Evil Bill Fence Door, copyright this patch, sell it with > onerous copy protection, and for $1,000,000 a copy. The license > that comes with it prohibits re-distribution of the patch. Note > that I'm *not* re-distributing any GPL-licensed software. > > But you _modified_ a GPL licensed work (section 2 of the GNU GPL), and > now are distributing the modifications to this work. It is completely > irrelevant what the form of the patch is, your patch does not work > without the GPLed work, and cannot be used without it so it is a > deriviate work.
If I distribute the modifications, then yes. In this example only *instructions* are provided. Saying "crop the photo so you see only the face, then put it in a red frame" is not a derivative work of that photo. > To create the patch you modified a GPLed work, so it > is clearly a modification in anyway of the word, how you represent > these modifications are once again completely irrelevant. Then there > is the fact that your patch requires the GPLed work to be useful. That's not the copyright law criterion for a derivative work. The derivative has to *contain* all or part of the pre-existing work. And that is actually what the section of the GPL you quoted is referring to. If your original code is not derived from the GPL code, it's a separate independent work. It may _need_ the GPL code to actually do something. That does not make it a derivative work. An application is not a derivative work of the operating system, although you need an OS to run the application. What the GPL says in section 2 is that if you combine your own work with the GPL work, the GPL applies to the whole. That's logical: such a combination is a derivative work. This paragraph of text is my original work. The combination of my paragraphs with the parts of your message that I cited above is a derivative work of your message. (I'm allowed to make that derivative work because of fair use). Merijn -- Remove +nospam to reply _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
