On Sun, Dec 07, 2003 at 03:39:39PM -0500, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: > On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 22:45, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > > > OK, say I use the X11 license. Now suppose someone installs a closed > > > source plugin. Suppose it also happens that this same user has > > > installed some GPL plugin. Both plugins would be allowed separately, > > > right? When the user runs the program, it will load both plugins. > > > Would this in some magical way make the plugins derived works of each > > > other, thus violating the GPL? > > > > No. But a vendor could get into trouble if they shipped both. > > Huh? Please, could someone please find the derivative works in the > following, in chronological order: > > 1. I create a program, Anthony's Foo Editor, and add a plugin API. > I release my program under the MIT X11 license. > 2. Weston Manning (a new maintiner) uploads Anthony's Foo Editor as > afe. > 3. Marc Spencer creates a plugin, Frobit, under the OpenSSL license > 4. Weston Manning uploads afe-frobit > 5. Duncan Finch creates a plugin, Barnitz, under the GPL, version 2 > 6. Weston Manning uploads afe-barnitz > > While performing this excercize, please keep in mind the following, from > Title 17 USC Sec. 101: "A 'derivative work' is a work based upon one or > more preexisting works." Namely, I can NOT create a derivative work of a > work that does not yet exist. > > Now, we know from the definition of a derivative work (above) that 1--4 > can not be derivative works of 5 or 6. So, could someone please tell me, > where exactly is the GPL violation? There isn't one. You've picked an example where there is no problem. That does not mean that there are no other cases that could be problems. Both of these statements are true: "A vendor could get into trouble if they shipped both" "A vendor could ship both without getting into trouble" And they are not contradictory. There are two overlapping sets here (most of the interesting cases are in the overlap, labelled "maybe"). -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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