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Re: How long is it acceptable to leave *undistributable* files in the kernel package?



@ 17/06/2004 18:27 : wrote Raul Miller :

>> If you think there is some legally relevant document which means

 that a ...

>> work of an earlier edition), please cite that specific document.


 On Thu, Jun 17, 2004 at 04:41:42PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:

> http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise6.html discusses the
> differences between derivative works and compilations, and quotes
> a congressional report that elaborates:

 ...

> See also http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html, which remarks
> both that the whole of the derivative work must represent an
> original work of authorship, rather than an arrangement of distinct
> works, and that mechanical (non-creative, ergo non-copyrightable)
> transformation of the original does not make a derivative.


 Ok, this is good -- I did not know that.

 However -- by this definition, the linux kernel is very definitely a
 derivative work, and the firmware is content which has been
 incorporated into the kernel.

 According to what you just cited, the concept of a collective work
 doesn't enter into the picture at all.


Repeating, trying to summarize: the current version of the Linux kernel is a derivative work of its earlier versions, and an anthology work of its separated autonomous parts. Those parts, in principle, would be each and every patch that entered the kernel and stayed there.

--
br,M



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