On Fri, Jun 14, 2002 at 03:11:58AM -0400, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: > First Scenario > --------------- > > Let's assume for a moment that John Doe creates a document, and licenses > it under the DFCL. > > Now, some unrelated party, Dan Smith, incorporates it into a larger > document. I assume you left out ", which is licensed under the GNU GPL" here. > According to the above, the notice is now optional. Yes. > Various relatively minor (but still a page or two; enough to claim > copyright on) changes are made; all as part of a work under the GPL. > > Then, yet another unrelated party, decides chapter 5 is great and > distrubutes it alone. Chapter 5 is essentially John Doe's work, but with > the GPL page or two written by Dan Smith. The work is now effectively > under the GPL. > > So, add a page, and it becomes (effective) GPL. Yes, you can always reimplement that which is under a license you don't like. True for software, true for other things. > Second Scnario, Part I > ---------------------- > > I receive a tarball which contains a a nice COPYING file with GPLv2 in > it; and some documentation with the DFCL on it. I assume this documentation is "merely aggregated" with the whatever-it-is in the tarball that isn't the documentation? > On the DFCL files, I see notice that John Q. Public modified them on > so-and-so date (GPL 2(a)). I also see a GPL notice. Possibility illegitimate. It depends on whether John Q. Public's modifications truly merit independent copyright protection. This gray area is not unique to the would-be-DFCL. It already exists. If I take an MIT-licensed file and fix a buffer overflow in it, is it legitimate for me to claim copyright on that fix and place the file under the GPL? If I correct a typo in a user-visible string? If I rearrange the order of some function parameters? If I change the names of the local variable of a function? If I change a while() to a for() with a null iteration operation? If I convert ints to floats? If I replace a function's implementation with a system() function that runs a miniature shell script? If I add assertions? How about if I replace an entire function? How big does the function have to be? Does xmalloc() count? No license is going to help you with these questions. > Now, the question: Is this mess legal? Can I distribute it? The files > have two copyright statements. From two different people. Under two > difference licenses. It depends. > I'm not sure if it is, it sounds pretty hairy. And it sounds like it'd > be a common situation. How common is it with GPL and GPL-compatible code? Do you know? > Second Scenario, Part II > ------------------------ > > Let's say Part I is legal. Now, at some point, the GPL sections and the > DFCL sections are no longer distinct. The DFCL part can no longer "be > reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves." > > Up to now, we have been depending on that section 2, paragraph 2 to > guard our use of a different license. Actually, no. It's not the GPL that enforces that. As I understand it, it's copyright law. I can't take a Toni Morrison novel, rot13 it, stick it inside GCC, pull it back out, rot13 it again, and have a GPLed Toni Morrison novel. I couldn't do that (and get away with it) if even the GNU GPL had no paragraphs in clause 2 after the lettered subsections. The work and all clear derivatives of it retain thier copyright and licensing as long as it can still be discerned to be the work in question. > We can't any more. And I'm not > sure if we can wiggle out of the DFCL and just call it GPL. > > If we can't, then we run into problems with 2(b), 6 and 7. It's not my intention that, if a DFCLed work gets so thoroughly integrated with a GPLed work that one can no longer tell where one ends and the other beings. -- G. Branden Robinson | If you make people think they're Debian GNU/Linux | thinking, they'll love you; but if branden@debian.org | you really make them think, they'll http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | hate you.
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