Brian -- I agree with Larry that "mere aggregations" are "collective works" (at least in general; I would not discount the possibility that one might find some nuance of "collective work" that is not present in some "mere aggregation"). Also, I'd note that not all collective works are mere aggregations.
I read the GPL as giving permission to distribute the GPL-licensed code with code under incompatible licenses when a part of some collective works (at least those that are mere aggregations)(see the paragraph in GPL section 2 that mentions mere aggregations), but not when a part of all collective works (see the two paragraphs preceding the mere aggregations paragraph). -- Scott ______________________________ Scott K. Peterson Corporate Counsel Hewlett-Packard Company One Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Brian Behlendorf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 10:40 PM To: Lawrence E. Rosen Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: "Derivative Work" for Software Defined On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote: > > Can someone clear up the difference between "mere > > aggregation" and a "collective work"? > > As far as I can tell, a "mere aggregation" IS a "collective work." The > former term has no meaning in the copyright law. OK, so I thought the GPL distinguished between the two - that having a GPL program (I'm not thinking of the kernel here or other things reasonably determined to be part of an "operating system", an allowance the GPL makes) on the same CD as non-GPL bits, in a situation such as a Red Hat Linux CD, was OK because it was "mere aggregation", which the GPL explicitly allows, and not a "collective work", which the GPL states *would* be under the GPL. Maybe "mere aggregation" has no meaning w/r/t copyright law, but am I mistaken in thinking the GPL makes the distinction? Brian -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3 -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
