Plan for tomorrows (20080522) FESCO meeting

Alexandre Oliva aoliva at redhat.com
Fri May 23 17:18:30 UTC 2008


On May 23, 2008, David Woodhouse <dwmw2 at infradead.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 14:48 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
>> On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 06:48:14PM +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
>> > > is a separate work. Like your BIOS for example.
>> > 
>> > Being a separate work doesn't save it from the requirements of the GPL.
>> > 
>> > The GPL clearly states that under some circumstances it _does_ extend to
>> > sections which are independent and separate works in themselves.
>> 
>> > 	If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the
>> > 	Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and
>> > 	separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms,
>> > 	do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as
>> > 	separate works. 
>> > 
>> > (OK, that's the firmware).
>> 
>> No it isn't. See "mere aggregation" 

> That's a very optimistic interpretation of 'mere aggregation', given
> that the licence is very clearly stating that it applies not only to
> derivative works but also to collective works.

Besides, in order to claim it's mere aggregation, you have to be able
to point at the separate works and say "see, I aggregated this work,
that is under the GPLv2, with these other works, that are under
various other licenses".

Now, where can I get this original work that is under the GPL, that
was aggregated with other works?  It's just the sort of thing I've
looking for, couldn't find, and ended up creating linux-libre for.
But I can't find it anywhere.  I claim this separate independent work
has never existed.

> But of course, until/unless it's tested in court, neither of us is right
> or wrong.

+1

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}




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