Re: RES: What makes software copyrightable anyway?
On 5/17/05, Michael K. Edwards <m.k.edwards@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/05, Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> wrote:
> > Raul Miller writes:
> Actually, it's circularly bullshit. The scope of that license does
> include the making and distribution of "collective works", courtesy of
> both the "mere aggregation" clause (as ably construed by Humberto) and
> the simple fact that people in the computer industry lump a bunch of
> software installers on the same media all the time, without any
> special license. When that's the prevailing and expected practice,
> it's easily construed as an implied term in the contract, in the
> absence of clear language to the contrary.
Which is why I said "unlicensed collective works".
> And if you have any worries about the (uncopyrightable because obvious
> from the text of Quagga alone) collection Quagga + NetSNMP + libssl,
> you certainly needn't worry about it in the US given the way those
> components are actually packaged (dynamic linking); that combination
> only occurs at run-time, and is exempt from the entire "copyright
> infringement" calculus per 17 USC 117.
If this Quagga collection is uncopyrightable, then any
supposed flaws or features of the GPL are irrelevant,
as is their discussion.
There's really no point in discussing the terms of
the GPL with you in this context if this is what you
sincerely believe.
--
Raul
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