On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 01:22:07PM -0300, Humberto Massa Guimar?es wrote: > 3.3. it seems to me that it's absurd to think, for instance, that > Debian cannot dynamic link a GPLd program with OpenSSL. Why? Because > if I write a completely-compatible MassaSSL library and install it > in my system just in the same places/names/sonames/whatever OpenSSL > is installed, this would change the copyright status of _the_ > _program_!!
This says that there can be no such thing as copyright infringement for creating a derivative of a piece of software, because you can always replace the original with a reimplementation that wouldn't be infringement. While it may be an interesting legal theory that copyright infringement in software can only apply to verbatim copying (and one that has been proposed before by various crackpots), I would not like to rely on it in court, because it's absurd. I'll leave it as an exercise for the students to find where the argument went wrong; the mere existence of a flawed conclusion is enough to convince me that it went wrong *somewhere*. Go back and do it again in a manner that concludes derivative works are normally infringement, and explains why this case is different. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
