Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
But if you looked at Linux, decided the scheduler was crap, and then wrote a completely new scheduler for Linux, then that would be a derivative work
No, it would not. By statute, in the U.S., a derivative work is a transformation of another work which retains its original purpose - turning a short story into a movie script, or translating into a different language. See the Harry Potter case, where the judge said that turning narratives into a reference text, even with massive copying from the original sources, does not make the reference text a derivative work of the novels, because the reference does not serve the same purpose as the novels even though it is a transformation of them. Programs written to interoperate with other programs are not derivative works of those programs. And a good thing, too. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
