Imagine that I take a memory snapshot of a running Emacs process. I then
send this snapshot to somebody else. If the snapshot is considered a
derived work, then I've just made a "binary only" distribution of Emacs,
therefore violating the GPL. This would mean that in order to exchange
such snapshots, people would have to make the source code to Emacs
available from the same location, correct?
Per section 3a of the GPL, yes, or, alternatively, you could follow the option in section 3b and be willing to make a copy of the Emacs sources available to anyone who asked you for the next three years.
Or you could start with a precompiled distribution for which someone (perhaps a Linux vendor) has followed the terms of 3b, and make your snapshots available per 3c.
The difference being, a core file actually contains executable
instructions from the original binary on disk. My format is different --
it only contains the DIFFERENCES between what is in memory and what is on
disk. So I'm wondering if my snapshots are derived works or not.
A program consists of more than pure executable code. Does your snapshot include any of the original preinitalized data, say if it lies on a page which also includes changed pre-initialized data?
-- -Chuck
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