On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 01:55:18PM -0800, Mark Rafn wrote: > On Wed, 5 Mar 2003, Steve Langasek wrote: > > Let's see if we can build consensus around a few points. > > Does anyone here hold the position that requiring the copyright notice on > > the front page would not be DFSG-free, if that's a valid interpretation > > of the GPL? > I believe this is not free unless it can be removed when the page is > changed by the site administrator enough not to be considered a derivative > work of the PHP-Nuke copyrighted default homepage. > This fails DFSG9 - it's contaminating my wholly-original homepage. > This is a blurry line, though it's one that may come up in other software > which has output that can be considered derivative of the software rather > than derivative of the input. Well, note that a lot of other GPL software (including all GNU text/code processing tools I'm familiar with) specifically exempts the output from being regarded as a derivative work of the processing tool. For bison, gcc and the like, there may be enough originality in the structuring of the output to support a copyright claim. Similarly, I would argue that, if you derive benefit from using the PHP-Nuke engine to assemble your homepage into its final form for presentation, it is not *wholly* original.[1] Even if it is no longer a derivative work of the PHP-Nuke copyrighted default homepage, it might legally be a derivative work of the PHP-Nuke engine itself. > > Does anyone believe the GPL unambiguously *dis*allows that > > interpretation? > I do. 2c applies to running of the program, which is done on behalf of > the administrator by the webserver which hosts PHPNuke, not the computer > making an HTTP request. Nothing is truly unambiguous, but this doesn't > seem close to me. You believe there is *no* ambiguity regarding the words "reads commands interactively when run" and "started running for [...] interactive use", that this is always limited to cases where a single invocation of an executable program presents an interactive interface? > > Does anyone believe that this interpretation is sufficiently wrong-headed > > that it should not be considered valid, in spite of statements from the > > copyright holder or a court ruling? > It's clearly the author's wishes, so I'd personally rule that this isn't > actually GPL software - it's GPL with an incompatible rider. We generally > honor author's stated wishes even when the license doesn't encode it > fully, and in this case that means keeping it out of Debian. > If a court were to rule that this is the correct definition of GPL2c, we > likely will find that we have some infringing software in Debian, and > we'll need to deal with it. If you believe this interpretation of interactivity would imply that Debian includes infringing software, I suspect you've misunderstood the scope of my argument. I am only talking about the instance of a web app which, though it exists as a series of discrete scripts that communicate with the user through a stateless HTTP connection, presents a unified "interactive session". I don't pretend to be familiar with all the software in Debian, but my experience suggests to me that it's unlikely that GPL code not originally intended for use in such a web app would be incorporated into one. (Perhaps because most web app writers suffer from a heavy dose of NIH syndrome. ;) -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer [1] I might argue that the use of PHP-Nuke entirely precludes originality on the part of the user, but such spitefulness would not serve to advance our discussion here. ;)
Attachment:
pgpKDeYoY0Rji.pgp
Description: PGP signature