On Sun, Oct 31, 1999 at 08:36:09PM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 31, 1999 at 09:55:33PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote:
> > > > Where would you like the discussion to head?
> > On Sun, Oct 31, 1999 at 05:30:44PM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
> > > Towards a fix for the problem that doesn't make the GPL non-free.
> > How does my interpretation of copyright law make the GPL non-free?
> Kernel is GPL. Everything is a derivative of the kernel under your
> interpretation. You can argue that Linus has allowed people to abuse the
> GPL of the kernel so it's okay, however I think this would cause the GPL
> to contaminate any distribution which contains any GPL software. If that
> doesn't cross the DFSG line, it comes very damned close to doing it.
``Here's an example. Sure, it doesn't work in that case, but I'm sure there
are other examples.''
That's not an argument.
> If RMS intends this sort of contamination (I don't believe he's even
> considered the issue fully)
As hominem's aren't very useful, either. And iwj's intentions (as
author, and copyright holder, and licensor) are probably more relevant
in any case.
> then we CANNOT ship things like Apache with
> Debian unless we get permission from Linus and the other kernel Copyright
> holders to do so, in writing (or at least in email with modified license
> terms to be applied to the next release of the kernel)
Written permission like:
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
do you mean? See the top of the COPYING file in your favourite source
tree.
> Should this interpretation of the GPL become dominant I believe we should
> deprecate the GPL in favor of a license which does not skirt the letter of
> the DFSG while violating its spirit in favor of some license which
> doesn't.
*boggle*. You're claiming that in spite of the fact that the DFSG was
specifically written to include the GPL, in spite of the fact that it
lists the GPL as its first example, and in spite of the fact that the
DFSG only cares about derived packages using the same license, that
the GPL doesn't conform to the `spirit' of the DFSG?
This is ridiculous.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``The thing is: trying to be too generic is EVIL. It's stupid, it
results in slower code, and it results in more bugs.''
-- Linus Torvalds
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