[cc-community] GNU-GPL, makefiles, and non-distributed executables

David davidpalmer at westnet.com.au
Sun Dec 16 23:52:56 EST 2007


Terry Hancock wrote:
> Kyle Williams wrote:
>> On Saturday 15 December 2007 02:40:59 Greg London wrote:
>>> Eve compiles the object files together on her computer. Alice makes
>>>  Eve agree to not distribute the resulting executable.
>>>
>>> Does this satisfy the GNU-GPL applied to George's code?
>> I think the GPL is very clear on this.
> 
> Heh. Right. :-)
> 
>> In section 2 b) "You must cause any work that you distribute or 
>> publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the 
>> Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge 
>> to all third parties under the terms of this License."
> 
> Note that this is from GPLv2 and uses the word "derived", which is a
> "term of art" in copyright law and is pretty limited as a result.
> 
>> So no, even though Eve distributes her code and Georges code the way
>> you suggest, her work still contains Georges work and thus must be 
>> under the same license as Georges work.
> 
> NO. It does NOT "contain" George's work. This is the whole point of
> Greg's example. Eve doesn't distribute any work of George's except as a
> verbatim copy of his original work, distributed on the same transmission
> medium.
> 
> Eve's code is merely "designed to work with" George's work. However,
> that is "use" and is not covered.
> 
>> On a more practical level. If Eve's wants to make use of Georges code
>> she'll need to reference it within her code. Her works then 
>> immediately includes Georges work, and there's no escaping the 
>> license.
> 
> "Referencing" a work is NOT "including" it (imagine the consequences if
> it were!). Lists of bookmarks are a trivial example of why that would be
> bad as are scientific citations, bibliographies, etc.

Classic 'mixed metaphor'.

'Referencing' in software describes an active, interacting, continual 
interface and has not the remotest comparison to bibliographical style 
referencing.

Totally unrelated.

This is why Georges work needs to be included - Alice's app literally 
can't exist without it (any more than the existential state can exist 
without the phenomenological), existence is denied for want of an 
environment - books are capable of standing alone, with no more than a 
bibliographical section somewhere in the back, supplying a nodding 
reference.

<snip>
Regards,

-- 
David Palmer
Linux User - #352034


More information about the cc-community mailing list