G'day Deepayan,
>>>>> "DS" == Deepayan Sarkar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
DS> On 5/22/06, Berwin A Turlach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
DS> [...]
>> [...] Should perhaps better be formulated as:
>>
>> My understanding was that in that moment a product was created
>> that would have to be wholly under the GPL, so the person who
>> did the linking was violating the GPL and it is not clear
>> whether anyone is allowed to use the linked product.
DS> I think you are still missing the point. [...]
Quite possible, as I said early on IANAL. And these discussion really
starts to remind me too much of those that I read in
gnu.misc.discuss. Since I never participated in them, I don't see why
I should here. And that group is probably a better forum to discuss
all these issues. If some of the guys who always tried to argue that
they found a way to circumvent the GPL are still hanging around, I am
sure they are happy if you come along and confirm that according to
your understanding of the GPL eveything they are doing is o.k.. :)
DS> The act of creating a derivative work is NOT governed by the
DS> GPL,
Yes, as a part of the GPL that I quoted earlier states. it is the
(local?) copyright law which defines when a derivative work is
created. The GPL just stipulates under which licence this derivative
work has to be.
DS> so it cannot possibly by itself violate the GPL.
Fair enough. There are probably several people in gnu.misc.discuss
who would be happy to hear this. :)
DS> The question of violation only applies when the creator of
DS> this derivative work wishes to _distribute_ it. This is like
DS> me writing a book that no one else ever reads; it doesn't
DS> matter if I have plagiarized huge parts of it. This point is
DS> not as academic as you might think.
Hey, I work in an academic environment, so it is hard to imagine that
I would view any point as being too academic. :)
DS> It is well known that Google uses a customized version of
DS> Linux for their servers; however, they do not distribute this
DS> customized version, and hence are under no obligation to
DS> provide the changes (and they do not, in fact). This is NOT a
DS> violation of the GPL.
I agree and would have never claimed anything different. You are
stating the obvious here.
>> [...] If one scenario is not on, I don't see how the other one
>> could be acceptable either. Except that in the first scenario
>> there is a clear intend of circumventing the GPL. [...]
DS> That's your choice, but the situations are not symmetric, and
DS> quite deliberately so.
That's why I studied mathematics and not law. I readily accept that
there is some logic in law, it is just that I never "got" it. For me,
if I make someone else link a GPL product P with a non-GPL product Q,
then this is the same, whether I was the provider of P or Q.
DS> The FSF's plan was not to produce a completely independent and
DS> fully functional 'GNU system' at once (which would be
DS> unrealistic), but rather produce replacements of UNIX tools
DS> one by one. It was entirely necessary to allow these new
DS> versions to operate within the older, proprietary system.
Wasn't your argument above, in response to the scenario that I was
describing, that it is not necessary to explicitly allow this because
"a user can never violate the GPL"? As long as you operate on a
proprietary system and not distributing anything, why would there all
of a sudden be a problem?
DS> In fact, GCC was not the first piece of software released
DS> under the GPL,
My guess is that the first piece of software released under the GPL
was Emacs, but it is quite likely that I will be corrected on this
point.
DS> and until then the only way to use GPL software was to compile
DS> them using a non-free compiler.
I know, I have compiled a lot of GPL software with non GCC compilers;
and I have been using GCC when it was still standing for GNU C
Compiler. But thanks for the history lesson anyhow. :)
Cheers,
Berwin
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