On May 7, 2009, at 8:53 PM, kcrisman wrote: > >> >> Most of all, everyone, please go read the damn GPL! > > Out of curiosity, does anyone on the list actually know a lawyer at > FSF? I wouldn't be surprised if someone does with all the Boston > connections.
I think (hope) that the restrictions and freedoms the GPL puts on a derivative work are understood by most people here. What is under debate is what, exactly, constitutes a "derivative work." This is out of the jurisdiction of the GPL or any other license to define--it is part of copyright law. I don't think anyone here honestly thinks that a photo edited by GIMP falls under this criteria, or that porting a program from one language to another doesn't--these are hyperboles made by people on the list to make a point (often with a heavy dose of sarcasm). > If so, getting even a small piece of FSF's "official" position, > without all the IANAL stuff, on whether (say) a notebook worksheet > containing small programs without "import" statements or whatever > would be a derived work or not might be actually useful in the long > run, not even sage-flame bait. At this point it really seems like the > whole thread is about what a "derived" work that "links" is, and these > are not necessarily well-defined terms, at least judging by this > thread's length :) One could ask the FSF, but one shouldn't expect an unbiased opinion (or variance from their FAQ) if one does. (They are lawyers though, unlike most (all?) of the folks that hang out here). - Robert --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
