On Feb 17, 2007, "David Schwartz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Linking with kernel exported symbols in a kernel module is by many >> people considered creating a work derived from the kernel. > That's simply unreasonable. It is the most clear settled law that only a > creative process can create a work for copyright purposes. Linking is an > automated process, not a creative process. It cannot create a work at all, > much less a derivative work. Per this principle, it would seem that only source code and hand-crafted object code would be governed by copyright, since compilation is also an automated process. FWIW, http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/128#1 touches a very similar issue, also covered in the upcoming release of the video of the FSFLA session in the 5th GPLv3 conference. > If you have two works, A and B, and neither is a derivative work of the > other, linking them together cannot change the status of A or B. IANAL, but I understand this is correct. However, the output is probably a derivative work of both. Also, it's the fact that A needs to be linked with B, or vice-versa, that's a clue that A is likely to be a derived work from B, or vice-versa, even before they're linked together. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED], gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED], gnu.org} - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
