Re: Q: Combining proprietary code and GPL for in-house use

[Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <edmundo@rano.org>]

Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de>:

> Who knows, for a court it might be enough that you used the GPL'ed stuff for
> your development, and link to it on some web page.  I don't know, as IANAL.

Yes, courts are very unpredictable. However, we shouldn't get too
obsessed about what a court might or might not decide. None of this
has ever gone to court and, as far as I know, there's no immediate
prospect of it going to court. It would be more useful to discuss what
we think a court ought to decide. Maybe, one day, someone who is
reading this discussion will be an expert witness advising a court how
to decide.

There is the general legal question of whether a work that contains no
part of another person's work but is combined with the other person's
work by the recipient can be a derived work of the other person's
work. What about publishing an index to someone else's book, an
alternative soundtrack for a DVD, music for someone else's poem,
alternative words for someone else's song, alternative choreography
for someone else's ballet, etc, etc? Cases like this may have already
been decided.

Then there is the technical question of what the exact criteria should
be in the case of computer software. This is almost certainly not yet
defined by existing law.

Edmund