Re: More GPL questions

[Stefaan A Eeckels]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:32:34 +0200
David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

> Stefaan A Eeckels <hoendech@ecc.lu> 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. §101, 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