Re: License concerns regarding package lft
MJ Ray wrote:
> Terry Hancock <hancock@anansispaceworks.com>
> So, in your opinion, houses are not made using tools and binary packages
> are not made using compilers?
No, what I *said* is that "tools" are not "materials", which they are
not -- at least not unless you use them as such. If you build a house
out of hammers, *then* the hammers are "materials", otherwise, they are
"tools".
And yes of course that means that hammers used to build one house and
then used as materials for another are both "tools" and "materials", but
it is a foregone conclusion in a license text that definitions are
relative to the work being licensed! When a license says "derivative",
we all understand without being told that "derivative of the work being
licensed" is meant, and not "derivative of some other, unrelated work".
Hence, when we say "materials", we mean "used AS materials", not "things
that could in principle be used as materials but were in fact used as
tools".
Because the license does say "materials", it confines the meaning of the
word "using" (which can have multiple meanings -- a flaw in the wording,
but not a flaw in the intent).
The strawman you are attempting to bait me with is an assertion of the
exact opposite claim: i.e. that "using" not only confines the meaning of
"materials" but that it would confine the meaning of a word like "tools"
to mean "materials".
This claim is obviously false. However, that has no bearing at all on
what I said. In fact, it is the nature of the word "using" to be almost
entirely defined by the noun: to "use X" means "to do whatever you
normally do with X". Thus, the meaning of "use materials" lies entirely
in the definition of "materials".
Hence, the definition of the word -- which you did not refute -- is what
determines the meaning of that phrase in the license.
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock (hancock@AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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