Paul Nathan Puri wrote:
> In copyright law, there are no defined distinctions. For the most part
> you must judge for yourself. The discussion about the GPL, LGPL, etc., is
> outside the scope of copyright law, and is governed by Contract law.
> Therefore, 'What is a derivative' is not a pertinent question if your
> query concerns an author's rights under the license in question.
Free software licenses, however, derive their force from copyright law.
To quote from the GPL:
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
the Program or works based on it.
If my work is not a derivative of the GPL'd work, under copyright law,
then that work's license has no bearing on mine.
Richard Braakman
