On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Bruce Perens <br...@perens.com> wrote: > On 03/01/2012 08:32 PM, Chris Travers wrote: >> >> I am not at all sure that line works once you get into trying to bridge >> GPL'd and proprietary apps > > Read > http://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3801396/Bruce-Perens-Combining-GPL-and-Proprietary-Software.htm > >> Does it matter how I do this? > > Very definitely. > >> Is it possible to accidently create a derivative work in the process? > > If you don't know what to do, you probably will, because the easiest ways do > create them are the ones that are more legally risky. However, it's not > terribly hard to build stuff in the more safe ways. > >> What do I have to avoid on a technical level (because I am thinking >> technically when programming, not legally) to be sure I am safe? > > It's in the article, at least for a number of general cases.
Bruce; The questions above were rhetorical. Now that we agree that the above questions I asked are valid questions..... I notice you say "Don't assume that you can put proprietary kernel drivers in a run-time loadable kernel module. The legality of such a practice is dubious, and there have not been sufficient cases to say reliably what would happen if you were to get sued," which comes back down to the linking question. You seem to say "do not link" and thus repeat more or less what the FSF says (and what Rosen spends a good time arguing against in his book, and he is by no means alone--- at least in any law review articles I have been able to find and read the overall trend is overwhelmingly against seeing linking as having much to do with derivation). So this gets to the problem that I think we are both trying to solve, which seems to be a fools errand: giving an engineering answer to a legal question. My sense (as a non-lawyer) is that communications from a project are very much likely to affect the scope of the license, and that downstream developers are likely to be able to reasonably rely on communications from a project that some practices are safe in their eyes. So this is where the discussions help. Best Wishes, Chris Travers _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss