Re: reiser4 non-free?

[Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>]

Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Sami Liedes wrote:
> >[Cc:'d to the reiser4progs maintainers. Please Cc: me when replying,
> >I'm not subscribed to -legal.]
> >> Finally, nothing in this license shall be interpreted to allow you to
> >> fail to fairly credit me, or to remove my credits such as by creating
> >> a front end that hides my credits from the user or renaming mkreiser4
> >> to mkyourcompanyfs or even just make_filesystem, without my
> >> permission, unless you are an end user not redistributing to others.
> >> If you have doubts about how to properly do that, or about what is
> >> fair, ask.  (Last I spoke with him Richard was contemplating how best
> >> to address the fair crediting issue in the next GPL version.)
> 
> Requiring that the name stay the same is non-free. Requiring that the
> credits remain visible when a non-derived front-end is used is non-free. 
> 
> >> Also, a clustering file system built to work on top of this file
> >> system shall be considered a derivative work for the purposes of
> >> interpreting the GPL license granted herein.  Plugins are also to be
> >> considered derivative works.  Share code or pay money, we give you the
> >> choice.
> >
> >Surely a license cannot add anything to the set of derived works (if
> >the other work is not derived, the license obviously doesn't apply to
> >it and hence never gets to say it is derived; if it is, it is even
> >without the license saying so). However I believe -legal has not
> >considered text like this a problem before (I might be wrong though).
> 
> Without clarification of what "On top of this file system" means, I'm
> inclined to agree that it's stretching things. Plugins are likely to be
> derivative works in any case.

I tend to disagree.  Plugins are like shared libraries that can be
linked into the system on demand, or like kernel modules that are
loaded later.  At least kernel modules are not considered derived
works.  Same goes with browser plugins.  I wonder if my understanding
of a plugin is buggy.

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
The only stupid question is the unasked one.

Please always Cc to me when replying to me on the lists.