Alan Mackenzie wrote: > > In gnu.misc.discuss Hadron <hadronqu...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > That's funny. You're still talking about. What happened to Alan's claim > > that the GPL was really easy to understand? > > It stands. Nobody's pointed to anything difficult in the GPL that they
http://www.usfca.edu/law/determann/softwarecombinations060403.pdf "Along these lines, the second sentence of Section 0 defines works based on the Program as the Program itself or any derivative work under copyright law followed by a (not entirely accurate) interpretive explanation regarding what the term derivative works means under copyright law. This explanation, introduced with that is to say, gives an indication of what the GPL drafters thought, hoped or may argue in a dispute, is the meaning of the term derivative works. Section 2 of the GPL contains additional explanations and declarations of intent, which even include collective works, i.e., a term defined by the Copyright Act in contrast to the term derivative work.250 In order to resolve these textinternal contradictions, it would seem appropriate to rely on the operative portion of the definition in Section 0 (which contains the reference to the Copyright Act) and treat the explanatory notes as statements of opinion that have been added for convenience purposes only.251" etc. etc. etc. http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch06.pdf "According to the first sentence, the entire GPL applies to a modified work as a whole. Under the copyright law, such a modified work is a derivative work. (17 U.S.C. § 101.) So far, there is no hint that linking makes a difference. The second sentence refers to portions of the work that are not derived from the Programthat is, are not derivative works. This necessarily means works that have their own copyrights, their own copyright owners, and potentially their own licenses. So the second sentence is true regardless of whether the independent and separate works are linked in some way to the GPL software. Such works remain independent and separate works, at least when you distribute them as separate works, and the GPL cannot possibly apply to them without their copyright owners consent. The third sentence refers to those independent and separate works when they are distributed as part of a whole. Once again, we are reminded that the GPL applies to the whole work. But how are we to understand its reference to the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program and later to each and every part regardless of who wrote it? Is this a reference to the Copyright Act? ... All that the third sentence of GPL section 2 could possibly mean under the copyright law is that, for a work to be made available under the GPL, its preexisting component parts must be available to all subsequent licensees. The licenses to those components must permit that combination. That much is necessarily true for any software containing components licensed by others. The law makes it clear that the GPL cant affect the licenses to those preexisting component parts. Again, linking doesnt matter. The GPL then expresses its intent this way: The intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program. (GPL section 2.) That may be the intent, but is that what the GPL actually does? This is a critical example of imprecise phrasing. Who gets to exercise the right to control distribution? Certainly the owner of a collective or derivative work gets to exercise the right to control those works, and the owner of each contribution gets to exercise the right to control his or her contribution. (17 U.S.C. § 103[b].) Does the phrase based on the program refer to both derivative and collective works? That isnt technically correct, at least under the U.S. Copyright Act, because a derivative work is a work based on one or more preexisting works, but a collective work is not. (17 U.S.C. § 101.) There is still no meaningful clue about linkage. ... One final warning: If there is an ambiguity or uncertainty of interpretation in a license, the license will generally be interpreted against the licensor regardless of what the license drafter meant to say. It is up to the authors of the GPL to make their license clear, not up to licensees to seek outside guidance to interpret it. I explore that issue further in Chapter 12. I wont give legal advice of a general nature to the readers of this book. So you can take with a grain of salt my belief that these interrelated sections of the GPL quoted earlier will ultimately be read by the courts to mean that derivative works are subject to the GPLs reciprocity provision, but collective works are not. And as I shall argue again more fully in the discussion of derivative works litigation in Chapter 12, the legal analysis of what constitutes a derivative work simply doesnt depend upon the style or mechanism of inter-program linking. This, by the way, is also the only interpretation that is consistent with item 5 of the Open Source Principles listed in Chapter 1, that allows licensees freely to combine open source and other software. The LGPL Alternative ... These sections of the LGPL are an impenetrable maze of technological babble. They should not be in a general-purpose software license. The LGPL even concedes that the threshold for this to be true is not precisely defined by law. (LGPL section 5.) A licensee under these provisions wont have a clue how extensive his or her good faith efforts must be when creating a derivative work in accordance with sections 2(d) and 5 of the LGPL." What say you now, Alan? regards, alexander. -- http://gng.z505.com/index.htm (GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards too, whereas GNU cannot.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
