Re: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe
"Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> writes:
> From: "Michael K. Edwards" <m.k.edwards@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe
> To: Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>
> Cc: Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>, debian-legal@lists.debian.org
> Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 13:35:31 -0800
> Reply-To: M.K.Edwards@gmail.com
>
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 16:16:53 -0500, Brian Thomas Sniffen
> <bts@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> [quoting Michael Poole]
>> > It is not hard: Some distribution of Eclipse is only encumbered by the
>> > GPL if it requires a GPLed work to correctly operate. You may have
>> > some odd version of Eclipse, but the standard releases have no such
>> > requirement.
>
> A distribution of Eclipse is only encumbered by the GPL if it is a
> derivative work of the GPL, such as by cut-and-paste of a piece of GPL
> code in excess of "de minimis" standards. The GPL simply doesn't
> address the "needs GPL code to work properly" case; consider Makefiles
> that only work with GNU make.
That's a nice example.
> [snip]
>> Some distribution of Eclipse is encumbered by the GPL if it, that
>> distribution, includes a copy of a GPL'd work (and it is not mere
>> aggregation, which this certainly isn't). So shipping Eclipse+Kaffe
>> is not OK. Shipping Eclipse+otherJVM is fine.
>
> Copies are OK, derivative works aren't. Eclipse+Kaffe isn't a
> derivative work and doesn't create one during execution either.
Why are copies OK, and derivative works not? I see GPL 2b talking
about any work that in whole or in part contains the Program.
Eclipse+Kaffe contains Kaffe, GPL 2 then exempts mere aggregation --
which this is not. It also exempts separate sections *when
distributed separately* -- and explicitly covers them when the Program
is distributed as a whole.
That feels like it's written to address this particular case -- or at
least a tarball containing Kaffe and Eclipse. This is similar enough
to count, it's just a funny compression scheme.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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