Re: [GPL] No linking with proprietary programs: where?

[tb@MIT.EDU (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

SSchott <SSchott@sglm.com> writes:

> >   3) If you attempt to defeat (2) by distributing the two functions
> >      separately, or distributing only locate_inner_otter, and telling
> >      users how to combine them to produce frob-otters, and there is no
> >      way to make locate_inner_otter useful without doing so, then a
> >      court will find that you were attempting a subterfuge, and that
> >      what you were doing was the same thing as (2) for all practical
> >      purposes.
> 
> I disagree. If this were true, than no proprietary program could be run on
> GNU/Linux, and this is not the case. By their nature, proprietary programs
> depend on their operating systems- they are useless withouit them. That does
> not mean that proprietary programs violate the O/S's copyrights. 

The normal definition of "the entire work" does not include the kernel
it runs on.  So that's the point here.  The threshhold about which you
must worry is what is an "entire work", a "complete program".  

> This subterfuge argument comes from the new Digital Millenium
> Copyright Act

No, it doesn't; it's a general legal thing.  I agree that the DMCA
doesn't have anyhting interestingly new here.

Thomas