> Patrik Stridvall wrote: > > > But the point I'm trying to make is that I can be in violation of > > > your RELICENSE. I can make a claim that YOUR work is > > > covered by the *GPL, so that your RElicense to me doesn't apply. > > > If this holds, then my original statement that you gave up your > > > copyright protection holds. > > > > I'm not sure I follow you. > > > > Yes, if my work is covered by *GPL, you can ALWAYS use it if you > > follow the conditions in the license. > > yes, even if it contradicts your relicense. If you "work on" > an *GPLed > product, what you do is automatically claimed by *GPL, thus you can't > make any license on your work that is *GPL free.
The *GPL only claim parts that are considered a derived work of the *GPL work. So if I write a function A and use that to improve the implementation of a *GPL:Ed function B, the *GPL claims my function A under the *GPL because of the existance of code in B calling my function A and thus the work I distribute as a whole includes my function A as a derived work. However my function A in and of itself is not a derived work of the *GPL:ed work so the *GPL only claims the function A as a part of what I did above. This means that I can relicense the implementation of function A under another license and the *GPL can't claim any indepedent modifications to it since it is not by itself a derived work of the *GPL:ed work. > > Of course, if you later decide that oh well following the *GPL > > is not that bad in comparison after all, it is possible and > > even probably that I can't sue you for breaking the relicense > > as long as you follow the *GPL. > > and if your are relying on your copyright protection to allow you > to benefit on the relicense, you don't have it in this case. > Remember also that the *GPL is pretty much irrelevent so long > as you are > not distributing to the public, so it's not a great cost to choose to > go that route. If you are not distributing to the public you don't need a relicense, the *GPL only forces you to release your work if you distribute to the public. > > The point it that you must show that you follow either *GPL > > or my relicense in order to not be a copyright infringer. > > You don't have to follow both though. > > It's a little different, because I think the burden of proof is > different. Pending on the what you have in your relicense, it's > easy to show that the receiver is covered because they have the > software. On a GPL violation, you have to show that what they are > doing with the software is in violation of the license - which might > be much harder to show. I think we are coming to much of topic by discussing the burden of proof. The point is that if you distribute without the permission of the *GPL or my relicense you are a copyright infringer. Whether in pratice I can detect it or prove it, is irrellevant as far as choosing a license for Wine is concerned.
