Re: Linux and GPLv2

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2005 at 05:41:10AM +0200, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> > I'd question whether that'd apply to a *free* system, anyway.  I havn't
> > looked at these cases (since I don't know which they are), but I recall
> > a case that sounds just like it: an author of a work created (under
> > contract) for a movie claimed that no license to actually use that material
> > was granted, but as the paid-for work was useless without a license to use
> > it, a license was implied.  That doesn't seem relevant where the work
> > is being given out entirely for free; the creator has no obligation to
> > anyone else to grant a license to make the library's release useful.
> > (For a commercial SDK, this would seem to apply to header files.)
> 
> So now the degree of protection by copyright depends on how much you
> charge for it?  What if someone gets paid to develop open source?

Then, I'd imagine--which is the best I can do; this is over my layman's
head--that the person that paid him would receive such an implicit license
for the header files.  That is, if I pay you to write a library for use
in my work, you can't say after the fact: "here's the library, you can
use it all you want, but you can't copy the material in the headers",
since the work I paid for only has value if I can actually distribute
programs that use it.  (Just as special effects created for a movie
only have value if the movie producer can actually put it in the movie.)

I don't see that this affects open source as such: it's between the
creator of the work and the person that paid him to do so.  The license
other parties receive is unrelated, and the creator can--other contracts
so on permitting, of course--license or not license to other people
however he pleases.

(Maybe I'm miles off; I'm open to informed corrections.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard