On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 11:29 PM, Chad Perrin <per...@apotheon.com> wrote: > In that, the only way the opinion of the license's author really seems to > factor into things once the license has already been written is as a > contribution to the common understanding of the license. For that > purpose, however, it is only one of many potential inputs to the common > understanding of the license.
Yes. However, when referring to the GPL FAQ, I actually believe it represents the common understanding of a rather large portion of the FOSS community, not just the understanding of Stallman or perhaps Moglen. (Granted, for many it is just that they accept whatever the FSF says, for others it might be they don't want to argue with the FSF, but even so, their acceptance then contributes to the common understanding.) Hence I find it a useful though not legally authoritative document. The real point I was trying to make however is that the GPL FAQ seems to function well as a safe baseline for what is very likely allowed. Most people who disagree with the FSF interpretation (such as Rosen in this thread) usually believe a more permissible interpretation of copyright law is correct. Hence, it seems while Rosen writes that the FSF position is wrong, in this particular case they both would agree that 2 separately running programs (sharing no code) are not derivative works of each other and hence. > It's also important to take the (stated) intent of the work's author into > consideration, If the author(s) has(have) given such a statement, and if it is equal to or more permissible than the common understanding of the GPL, then that would of course be the most usable information to go with and the rest of the discussion is unnecessary. henrik -- henrik.i...@avoinelama.fi +358-40-8211286 skype: henrik.ingo irc: hingo www.openlife.cc My LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=9522559 _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss