Alexander Terekhov said on Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 07:06:40PM +0100,: > Now replace "kernel" with SysV UNIX and GPL with > "confidential" (OCO or something like that). How nice.
I consider this as a bug with the law - silliness of treating programs as analogous to `literary, artistic and dramatic works' as I find from the treaties, and the Indian law. AFAIK, at least few EU countries treat the too treat software as a part of the category `literary, dramatic and artistic' work. The situation is this - I have program X, and you wrote Y which depends on X. `Derivative work' in traditional copyright law was a work which modified X. Here, though Y is depending on X; and will not work without X, (a plug in; kernel loadable module) traditionally, it ought to be treated as an independent work. The nearest analogy from literature I can think of at the moment is X being a grammar text book and Y my essay, which conforms to grammar in that text book. Is my essay a derivative of the grammar book? But, in computer programs, the analogy will not hold good; and therefore, the law is buggy. Why waste bandwidth trying to work within the framework of buggy laws? We should try to change the law. But that is work for another list ... -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3