Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

David Woodhouse dwmw2 at infradead.org
Tue Jun 17 12:21:17 UTC 2008


I wasn't going to argue with Les any more, but since he's reverted to
what could almost be considered a direct untruth rather than his normal
illogical and unparseable nonsense, I suppose I should point that out in
case he manages to trick anyone with it.

On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 18:34 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> if you would read the COPYING file, you'd see that there are more
> requirements for the permitted aggregations:
> "not derived from the Program"
> "reasonably considered independent and separate works".

It's somewhat misleading to refer to those as 'requirements for the
permitted aggregations', because those phrases actually form part of the
GPL's explicit description of the aggregations which are _not_
permitted.

The GPL explicitly says that it _does_ apply to sections of a collective
work which meet both of the above requirements -- sections that are both
"not derived from the Program", and "can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves.

It's not an _actual_ untruth -- strictly speaking, they _are_ part of
the requirements for the 'mere aggregation on a volume of a storage or
distribution medium' exception. But only because they're also
requirements for the stated restriction which the exception relaxes.

Of course you can't be exempted from something that didn't apply in the
first place, so that makes them requirements for the exception, too :)

We have something like 'if A and B, then the GPL applies. Unless C'.

Les is saying that 'A and B' are requirements for that exception.
Which in a sense they are.

But it's a bit of a disingenuous way to phrase it :)

-- 
dwmw2




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