Re: A GPL-compatible license for photos and music. Which?
On Sun, 23 Apr 2006, Ying-Chun Liu wrote:
> Don Armstrong wrote:
> > On Sun, 23 Apr 2006, NeuRoTiX wrote:
> >>I took a look to the Creative Commons but it seems to be a non
> >>GPL-compatible license.
> >
> > Yes, most of the CC licenses (there are a few dozen of the things) are
> > not GPL compatible.
>
> I got a question. Why CC music/graphics cannot be used in GPL
> programs? GPL allows system("xxx") (or fork+exec) to run non-GPL
> programs because it's a separated work. Why fopen("xxx.png") is not
> a separated work?
There is a difference between a GPLed work reading a work under a
different license (like happens when I view a web page in a web
browser, FE) and creating a derivative work based on the combination
of the two works, as happens to the image that is displayed in the
throbber in firefox.
Where the line between these two question is drawn exactly is a matter
of some debate,[1] but in general, if you're distributing two works in
combination, not mere aggregation, they need to be compatible. That is
to say, if you'd normally stick the work in the upstream tarball, then
it needs to be compatible.
Don Armstrong
1: Even worse, it likely varies with jurisdiction and there's
virtually no case law in this area. Conservatively I'd suggest always
assuming that linking and other non-aggregation combinations require
licenses to be compatibility, and where possible make them so.
--
Of course, there are ceases where only a rare individual will have the
vision to perceive a system which governs many people's lives; a
system which had never before even been recognized as a system; then
such people often devote their lives to convincing other people that
the system really is there and that it aught to be exited from.
-- Douglas R. Hofstadter _Gödel Escher Bach. Eternal Golden Braid_
http://www.donarmstrong.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu
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