Re: Eclipse 3.0 Running ILLEGALY on Kaffe
On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 22:11:52 +0100, Dalibor Topic <robilad@kaffe.org> wrote:
> Michael K. Edwards wrote:
> > [Regarding the compatibility of a GPL JVM with Java code under other
> > licenses; cross-posted from debian-java to debian-legal]
>
> [cut noise about FSF]
One person's signal is another's noise; but that wasn't mostly about
the FSF, except insofar as it is the FSF's stance that seems to have
persuaded so many people to an opinion I believe to be unsupported by
relevant law.
> > But if the Kaffe copyright holders interpret the relationship between
> > Java bytecode and GPL code to be loose enough not to create a
> > derivative work, I think they have at least US case law behind them.
>
> The relationship between GPL, interpreters and bytecode has been
> rehashed here already before (with the same participants, old hat, and
> all that ;):
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/11/msg00010.html
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/11/msg00026.html
Thanks for the references; I'll read them over. My first impression
is that mechanical translation of bytecode to some other form of
instruction stream doesn't create an original work of authorship and
therefore doesn't create a derivative work, any more than rendering
the Postscript of an ordinary document to a PDF creates a derivative
work (it's the same "work" -- expressive content -- in a different
physical format). So the GPL has nothing to say about running Eclipse
on Kaffe's VM on that basis, either.
> As you can see, bytecode does not necessarily make the relationship
> looser. Nevertheless, the claim that is made by a particular developer
> of a 'competing' VM project on debian-java about running Eclipse on
> Kaffe being illegal, is wrong, in my non-lawyerish opinion, because
> Eclipse's source code or bytecode does not derive specifically from
> Kaffe's interpreter or class library, afaik, but uses 'standard' Java
> APIs all the way. Just as explained above in the links.
APIs, to the extent that they are functional and not expressive,
aren't copyrightable anyway. I don't think I've ever seen a case
where functional use of, say, C headers -- let alone of compiled code
-- was found to infringe copyright, as opposed to some term of a valid
license contract. Does anyone know of case law to the contrary?
Cheers,
- Michael
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