Re: What is the licence of Debian-specific files (Was: Intent to package "vibrant" graphical library
Craig Sanders writes:
> public domain work needs no license - you can do whatever you want with
> it, including re-license it under your own terms. this is true whether
> you make significant changes or not....the difficulty is in proving that
> someone violated your license if you didn't make significant changes.
No. The difficulty lies in the fact that a mere copy is not a creative
work, and only creative works are copyrighted.
> HIS derived work (*all* of it) is GPL.
A derivative is a mixture of the work of two or more authors, each holding
his own copyright. If one of those copyrights has expired then that
portion of the work is public domain. You cannot copyright someone else's
work.
I can take my copy of Hume's _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, key
in Hume's words, and start publishing my own edition, and there isn't
damnall that Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd can do about it.
> a work licensed under the terms of both the GPL and the BSD license is
> effectively a GPL-ed work with the advertising clause.
The advertising clause is an additional condition. Thus you cannot insert
BSD material into GPL material unless you are author of the GPL material.
--
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
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