On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:32:34 +0200 David Kastrup <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Stefaan A Eeckels <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > I write an original program that happens to use your GPLed > > library. I license my source code under a non-Free license to > > Alex. He compiles my code, and links it with your GPLed library that > > happened to be on his system (or that he downloaded for the purpose, > > for all I care). Go ahead, sue me for copyright violation. > > <URL:http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366> > > The Copyright Act, at 17 U.S.C. ยง101, is a little vague and > doesn't say anything at all about software: > > A ``derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more > pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical > arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture > version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, > condensation or any other form in which a work may be recast, > transformed or adapted. A work consisting of editorial > revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications > which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, > is a ``derivative work''. > > Now while we are not talking software here, the last sentence makes > clear that even a work which as a whole represents an original work of > authorship can be a derivative work. That's to be read in its entirety: > A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, > elaborations or other modifications which, as a whole, > represent an original work of authorship, is a ``derivative > work''. An original program in source code format, and contains function and/or system calls does not consist of "revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications" to the libraries or the OS. It's a wholly new work. It contains _no_ code from the libraries or the OS, and thus it cannot be a derivative work. Certainly constructs like "String" and "toUpperCase" are sufficiently generic to ensure that their use in a Java program doesn't make that program a derivative work of the "String" class. It's quite clear that the binary versions of a program are under the copyright of the constituent parts (especially because the [American] law clearly defines each instance of such a program, be it on disk, in memory, or in cache, as a separate copy of the program). It is - for me at least - just as clear that original source code is never under the copyright of "facilities" like libraries, the OS etc. it might, in compiled form, need to function. -- Stefaan A Eeckels -- The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself. -- Winston Churchill _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
