"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > That would make anything ever written that uses a GPL'ed library a > derivative work.
Everything that links to a GPL'ed library is a derivative work - it is explicit in GPL. > However the GPL is a COPYRIGHT license, not a technology license. > Someone else could write a library using the same calling structure in > the documentation and it would not be covered. Correct. There is no contradiction. Two out of the three solutions Amos suggested fall under this general umbrella, and IMHO are perfectly valid. > If using a published calling structure makes code derivative, then > half of Linux is owned by AT&T/SUN/UCB and the other Microsoft (or > SCO/Novel from Xenix). No. Sorry, but I don't even see how it is relevant. > IF that premise holds and any system calls used in the library came > from UNIX, then AT&T, UCB, SUN, etc own it. Ditto. > Quite the opposite. If the publicly available documentation for the > interface is the only thing that you use, then IMHO (obviously not > yours) the program that calls it is not covered by the GPL. YHO or MHO is not the issue here. GPL says YHO is wrong. See below. > If using the public documentation does make it a derivative work, > any code that makes ANY Linux kernel system call is a derivative > work of the kernel. The Linux kernel makes a specific provision for using system calls. GPL makes a specific statement that linking to a GPLed code creates a derivative work. Calling a function called ipq_get_packet() from proprietary code does not make it a derivative work of anything, but linking such code to libipq does. You may like it or not, but this is how it is. > What I said that if they ONLY use the publicly available documentation, > and don't "peek" into the code, or fool the Interface (probably found by > peeking) the work is not derivative. Geoff, for the last time, the issue with GPL is linking. > If for example, I knew the system functions your program calls, which I > could find out from the libraries on public display, then I can make > some assumptions about your code. Well, feel free to run strace(1) on any proprietary code you happen to have lying around, find what system calls it uses, and make clever assumptions. It's a perfectly decent and legal way to get paid. -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.goldshmidt.org ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
