Re: SUN RPC code is DFSG-free
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
> Every copyright case that's lost by the defendents is an
> example. That's the point: if you come up with the exact same
> expression, then either you've copied, or there's a lack of
> originality in the work to start with.
I thought I'd been following this discussion, but it seems to have
branched off into a discussion of originality. Unless I'm horribly
confused (which, as always, is possible) originality is absolutely
irrelevant to the Sun RPC code, because work derived from it is, well,
derived from it, and therefore clearly not original. (If I am
confused, I'd personally appreciate a recap that would explain the
connection, as I've gone back and reread the past few messages and the
connection is still opaque to me.)
Assuming that the reported clarification is accurate (i.e., BSD except
that you can't distribute the original by itself), there are two
questions to be answered:
1) Can you take a work based on the Sun RPC code and further modify it
to be exactly like the Sun RPC code, and distribute that?
2) If the answer to (1) is no, is that restriction compatible with the
GPL?
In order for the code to be GPL compatible the answer to one of those
questions must be "Yes". MHO, of course, is that the more likely yes
answer is to be found from (1), as (2) is clearly false. In fact, if
the answer to (1) is no, I have trouble seeing how it passes the DFSG
at all.
--
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org>
PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03
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