On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 09:56:10PM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: > Brian M. Carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx>: > > > .\" The GNU General Public License's references to "object code" > > .\" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any > > .\" document formatting or typesetting system, including > > .\" intermediate and printed output. > > > The second paragraph is what I am most concerned about. Is it possible > > to combine a work that is pure GPL and a work that is GPL with this > > "interpretation clause"? > > It would be better if the paragraph had read "interpreted to include" > instead of "interpreted as". As it is, an obstructive author could > conceivably object to you embedding the documentation in a program by > claiming that your binary is not "object code" or an "executable" in > the special, restricted sense used in the licence. However, unless the > copyright holder is known to be evil, I personally wouldn't worry much > about that possibility: if they really meant to modify the meaning of > the GPL they should have done it more clearly and explicitly. This tells us how the copyright holder interprets the GNU GPL. It cannot tell us any more than that. Until and unless a problem arises, such as the copyright holder or an agent of his accusing a licensee of copyright infringment, or until another copyright holder of GNU GPL asserts that this interpretation is incompatible with his own (creating a case where two GNU GPLed works cannot be combined), I'd say it's safe to leave the issue alone. FWIW, I don't see any obvious problems with the quoted interpretation. -- G. Branden Robinson | There is no housing shortage in Debian GNU/Linux | Lincoln today -- just a rumor that branden@debian.org | is put about by people who have http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | nowhere to live. -- G. L. Murfin
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