Re: On interpreting licences (was: KDE not in Debian?)
I'll give it just one more shot...
Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> spake:
> On Thu, Feb 10, 2000 at 06:41:11PM -0800, Joseph Carter wrote:
> > The GPL has no power to apply to non-GPL'd works which are not derivative
> > in source or binary form from GPL'd works. We have already established
> > this as true else the GPL would have failed the DFSG.
>
> Are you claiming that a working copy of kghostscript is an example of a
> non-GPL'd work which is not derivative in source or binary form from GPL'd
> works?
Of course not, he was discussing an example of the dual situation, a non-GPL
program linking to a GPL-ed library (readline); this point was brought up for
comparison in Anthony Towns' excellent post of 9 Feb. It is that case in which
the question is relevant whether or not copyright law requires GPL's
conditions to be respected (i.e., whether or not there is a GPL-derived work).
> The distinction between compile time and run time is artificial -- it's
> technology dependent. Build a new language, or maybe a new environment,
> and you have a new set of distinctions to work with. There's nothing
> fundamentally relevant to copyright law in this sort of distinction.
>
> If you somehow manage to decide that you have a way of coming up with
> a working copy of a program which is never distributed, you could apply
> the same underlying principle to any other copyrighted work.
>
> If a work only exists when the program is running, but millions of copies
> of that work exist in the hands of millions of users, do you really think
> that a court of law would accept the sleight of hand argument that those
> copies were never distributed -- that they "just happened" to spring into
> existence, by coincidence?
Yes, a court of law would accept that those copies were never distributed,
even thought they did not "just happen" to spring into existence either. In
particular, in the case where Galoob sold patches (Galoob's Game Genie) to
Nintendo cartidges, lots (maybe millions) of users were running patched copies
of the Nintendo software, that were as such never distributed: the court ruled
that Galoob did not infringe Nintendo's copyrights. In this case Galoob must
obviously have been using the original Nintendo software in order to create
the patches, yet I suppose the patches themselves were free of any Nintendo
code. No subtleties about licences here, a simple "no copying" policy. Nor any
question that using the Galoob's Game Genie required purchase of a Nintendo
cartidge. ``Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment
with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment,
without creating a derivative work.'' (http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html)
On the other hand, if all parts of the final program are being distributed by
the same distributor, as would be the case for a QPL library and a GPL
application, there is no question of evading copyright issues for part or all
of that program: permission for distribution of all copyright owners must be
obtained. By setting your subject to "New ways to evade copyright law" in some
other branch, you suggested that I was doing just that; while this has already
been refuted by me and others, I'll do so again here. Nobody in this
"discussion" is claiming (as far as I can see) that by some subtle shuffling
of pieces you can get a (composite) program from A to B without requiring
permissions from all copyright owners. The point is that the complex
conditions in the licences, in partcular GPL, may lead to a situation where
such permission may be obtained for some particular method of distribution,
but not for some other method. For instance, you may distribute in source form
(and under GPL) a GPL-ed an application that links to Qt (because then there
is no requirement to distribute "complete sources"), while also distributing
Qt (in source and binary) under QPL; the recipient could compile and link an
executable program which does not "happen to spring into existence", and which
was the goal of distributing the GPL sources, yet which could not have been
legally distributed directly. I think you put forward yourself another example
(a Solaris-linked GPL binary and Solaris itself), where the components might
be legally distributed separately (assuming permission from Sun) but not
together. So please don't suggest any more that people are trying to evade
copyright law when in fact they are trying (maybe by jumping through hoops) to
abide by the conditions put forth in the licence(s).
Marc van Leeuwen
Universite de Poitiers
http://wwwmathlabo.univ-poitiers.fr/~maavl/
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