[cc-community] GNU-GPL, makefiles, and non-distributed executables
David
davidpalmer at westnet.com.au
Fri Dec 14 22:10:22 EST 2007
Greg London wrote:
>> The GPL is quite openly expressed in this regard:
>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic
>
> I think you missed the issue. Alice doesn't distribute a derivative
> of George's work, and therefore does not trigger the source code
> requirement.
Does Alices app need Georges code to work?
In that case, she is making use of it.
There would be no other reason as to why she would need to include it.
>
> Alice sells a CD that contains an aggregation of works, not a
> derivative. The CD includes George's source code,
Good!
a compiler,
> a linker, a make file.
Any sane distro would already have these.
The CD also includes an object file of
> Alice's portion of her application.
How very kind of her.
>
> Eve buys the CD, and runs the makefile on her computer locally,
> compiling George's source code into an object file, then linking
> Alice's object with George's object, creating the final executable.
>
> The final executable is not distributed from Alice to Eve.
Of course not.
Intellectual ninjitsu wouldn't have it any other way.
> The final executable is created by Eve, using an aggregation
> of works given to her by Alice.
Right!
So if there is a copyright, of any sort, on a cake recipe, for example,
that is not being violated if the complete list of weighed ingredients
and a mixing technique description were distributed wholesale and the
end user made it up him/her self?
The rationale supplied being that the end user is entitled to violate
the legal environment by way of the totally unrelated logic that he/she
owns a cake mixer.
>
> Since the final executable is not distributed,
> the source code requirement is not triggered,
> and Alice is not required to supply source code
> for her portion of the application.
Supreme Court.
Denial of natural justice suit.
Multi-million dollar reparations awarded to both George and the FSF.
Do not pass go.
>
> Either that, or I'm getting confused with some stuff
> about LGPL and incorrectly munging it over to GPL.
Part of this could possibly work, but Alice had better be very nice to
George and gain permission in writing.
>
> Greg
Regards,
--
David Palmer
Linux User - #352034
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