Re: Question about licensing
On 12-Jun-99, 09:18 (CDT), John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org> wrote:
> Steve Greenland writes:
> > Is 'system ("dpkg -command arg");' an "editorial elaboration"?
>
> No. It's a reference (a concept that predates software). A work that
> refers to another work is not a derivative of that other work.
But apparently (to quote an earlier message from you), RMS disagrees.
My point is that existing copyright law was not written with software
in mind. Source code is a lot like other copyrightable works, but it
is used in ways that are totally unlike other copyrightable works.
Textually, the above appears to be a reference. But when you actually
run it, it uses the whole of dpkg.
Now, I happen to agree with you, that such use is not a derivative
work, within the meaning of copyright law and the GPL. But IANAL, so my
agreement is of no real validity.
> > The whole concept of execution and active reference (by which I mean
> > invocation of an external or internal subprogram, such as calling a
> > library function) is totally foreign to the vast majority of copyright
> > experts (jurists and lawyers).
>
> The whole concept of execution and active reference has nothing to do with
> copyright.
So how can using a GPL'd library routine cause my code to come under
GPL? Does the answer change if I use dynamic linking vs. static linking?
Does it change if I recreate the header files? Are header files a
"reference"? I know all this has discussed on gnu.misc.discuss, over
and over and over (and I don't mean for it be done here!), but I am not
aware of such discussion ever providing a consensus agreement. And if
technically competent people can't come to agreement, how can we expect
to get a reasonable decision out of non-techies?
Steve
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