On Wednesday, August 19, 2015 9:20:41 PM Rich Freeman wrote: > On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 8:48 PM, Michael Orlitzky <m...@gentoo.org> wrote: > > On 08/19/2015 08:37 PM, Fernando Rodriguez wrote: > >> > >> What's the purpose of these quotes? > >> Neither of them says it doesn't allow steps 1-3. Instead of doing selective > >> reading you should read the whole thing. If that's too much just read the first > >> few questions under "General understanding of the GPL" on the FAQ. > >> > > > > The point was that the GPL doesn't allow shit unless the copyright > > holders grant you the license in the first place. > > > > And they have, in writing. You can copy the kernel all you want under > the terms of the GPL. > > If you want to redistribute the kernel or a derivative work of it, > then you need to also distribute your sources. A binary module author > isn't doing that, so they don't need anybody's permission. > > You only need a license to do things that are forbidden by copyright > law. In general you can't bind licenses to unrelated activities. I > can't say that you have the right to use my software as long as you > don't beat your wife. Well, I can say it, but no court would enforce > it. Likewise you can't give somebody permission to use GPL software > under the condition that they don't distribute other software which > has nothing to do with your software other than containing a few > symbol names in the linking table. > > Try this exercise. Go buy a Quran. Now replace every occurrence of > the word "Mohammed" with "Fred." This email is now dynamically linked > to a book that I've never bought or read. Are you going to argue that > this email is a derivative work of the Quran? Suppose I told you to > grab your scientology bible and rip out page 3. Is that now grounds > for me to be sued by the Church of Scientology, on the basis that I > just cross-referenced their copyrighted work? After all, I did quote > one of their page numbers.
Try a different exercise. Go buy a Quran. Now use it as a cryptographic key to encrypt an email. Is the email now a derived work? That's no a perfect analogy but it's more like what happens when you dynamic link a library. It's not the symbols that are copyrighted, it's the code that those symbols load into your programs address space. Here's a better example, see the Mona Lisa example in wikipedia[1]. Now, suppose I write a small program that downloads a Mona Lisa picture of the internet and displays it with a mustache overlaid? Is my program now a derivative work of the Mona Lisa? That's *exactly* what happens when you dynamic link to a library. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work#Examples_of_derivative_works_under_U.S._law -- Fernando Rodriguez
