Re: gens License Check - Non-free

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Anthony DeRobertis <anthony@derobert.net> writes:

> On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 11:20:57AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>>
>> FOO is and always was a derivative work of MS Windows.  It was
>> provably such until Wine added that function; after that, it's much
>> harder to prove.
>
> Ah... I though it was being argued that wine's existence somehow made
> something less a derivative work of Winddows, not that it'd be harder to
> proove.
>

I'm not sure I buy the argument that WinFoo is a derivative work of
Windows.  Surely WinFoo, shipped with Windows, is.  But books are not
derivative works of eyes.  Nearly everybody has eyes.  It is expected
that books are written to be used with the Eye interface.  Windows is
similarly ubiquitous

> Anyway, why isn't Wine a derivative work of Windows if every program
> that uses the Windows API is?

Wine shares nothing but facts -- the API -- with Windows.  It is an
entirely different expression of the same idea.  Programs linking to
libraries are, it is claimed, derivative because you need the library
included in there to make the combined work.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu