Raul Miller writes: > On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 07:08:23PM +0100, Måns Rullgård wrote: > > It is also legal to sell all the ingredients for a bomb, along with > > instructions needed to build one. However, building and using the > > bomb is most likely illegal. > > As a general rule, bombs are not copyrighted works.
The DFSG supposedly allow users to use Debian-distributed software in any way they wish. The theme of this thread seems to be that some people believe run-time linking of an application against a GPLed library, when there are other implementations of the library API, makes the application a derivative of the library. It seems to me that if we indicate the application should link against a GPLed library because the other implementations do not fit our definition of free software, that packaging policy decision should have no impact on copyright issues: The decision is made by Debian for reasons unrelated to any copyright-protected actions. If you think copyright law (case, statutory, common or civil) supports the claim that the application is GPL-entangled, please say so and provide citations. Comments like "bombs are not copyrighted works" do not add anything useful to the discussion. Michael Poole
