Re: SableVM/Kaffe pissing contest (Was: GPL and Copyright Law)
Andrew Suffield writes:
> On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 11:18:30PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote:
> > Andrew Suffield writes:
>
> > > About the only thing I've seen that will do (a) is static linking in
> > > an ELF object, or anything comparable. (b) is the one that we normally
> > > deal with in Debian.
> > >
> > > [Always remember: derivation is a transitive relation. If a is derived
> > > from b, and b is derived from c, then a is derived from c]
> >
> > This is not true. The parts that make A a derivative of B may be
> > disjoint from the parts that make B a derivative of C. (When those
> > works are virally licensed, the license is transitive.)
>
> It's still true, you've just introduced an aliasing error. Set the
> resolution to 'lines of code', not 'packages'.
Which case or statutory law allows that level of resolution? Every
analysis I have seen treats copyright law as covering published works,
not lines of code. (In particular, it sets forth how to determine
when one work is derivative of another or not.) The FSF has a rather
well-known policy of accepting extremely short patches without
copyright assignments on the basis that a short-enough patch is not
copyrightable.
Michael Poole
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