On Sat, Oct 30, 1999 at 10:16:38PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote: > > The difference between mere reference and derivation, in this case, is > > the difference between treating the computer program as a static work > > (like a book) and a dynamic work (like a screen play or music score).
On Sun, Oct 31, 1999 at 02:17:04PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > This analogy doesn't really hold up, though: I don't know of any > scores that as well as requiring royalties for perfomance or > duplication forbid you to perform them with other songs. Are you suggesting that what you don't know is legally relevant? > And we already have permission to use both dpkg and the Corel > frontend. Just because you only use dpkg when Corel tells you too, > well, so what? Are you suggesting that that front end merely provides documentation on how to use dpkg? If I sold a cdrom which played music, and the music it played was a few bars of my own and some hit single I picked up from a music store, I'd have to have a legal right to sell that hit single. If I don't have that right it doesn't matter whether my cdrom is a regular music cdrom or some computer program that plays back encrypted mp3s. And it most certainly doesn't matter whether that computer program is statically linked or whether it uses a command interface to call the part that plays the hit single (unless the license on the hit single was sensitive to this point). Now, if you can show my anything in copyright law, or in the GPL, which makes any kind of distinction about the mechanics of how control is passed from the part of the work as a whole which is represented in one file to a part of that work which is represented in another file then I'll be happy to talk about that issue. But, last time I read through title 17, the *only* special provisions in copyright law for computer programs had to do with backups. And, the GPL is very careful to define what it means by "program" -- and that definition most definitely isn't restricted to a single binary object which runs in a single memory space or any other such thing. Anyways, unless you want to provide a reference to back up your point, why are we even discussing this? -- Raul
