On Wed, 20 Mar 2019, David Given wrote:
[...]
> - I *can* use this library in BSD code, and distribute both together
> as an aggregate under the terms of the GPL --- because the BSD
> license conditions are met by the GPL, so by distributing the whole
> under the terms of the GPL I meet both sets of licensing terms, and
> so everything is fine.
If by "use this library in BSD code" you mean modify and/or extend the
BSD code so it relied on the facilities of the GPL code, then you can
distribute my code under the GPL correct.
I got halfway through responding to this point-by-point until I realised that you're assuming that all usage of someone else's API makes a derived work --- everything you've said follows on logically from that.
Okay, here's a thought experiment. I'm writing a gawk script. I'm using the GNU extensions, which only exist in the gawk version of the language. Is my script a derived work of gawk or not? After all:
- the script is completely dependent on the gawk APIs (i.e. the published language)
- the script relies on implementation details of gawk (i.e. the non-standard extensions to the language)
- the script will not work on any other version of gawk
- the script requires gawk to be distributed along with it or it won't work