[cc-community] [cc-licenses] Most important feature: GPL-compatibility

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Sat Jan 28 17:52:40 EST 2012


On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 5:43 PM, drew Roberts <zotz at 100jamz.com> wrote:
> Try passing on object code and non-perfect copies of the source and see where
> it gets you.

As long as the object code was created from the non-perfect copy of
the source, that's perfectly fine.

And if you aren't transferring any object code at all (just the
source), it's also fine.

> It certainly assumes passing on of perfect copies. At least when
> copying the work and not copying modifications of the work.
>
> So if the assumption had no weight, you should be ok with that little working
> binary broken source idea in the above paragraph. I would not like to take
> that risk myself.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?  There are really two different
things here.  1) distributing a non-perfect copy of the source; and 2)
distributing a binary created from the original along with a
non-perfect copy of the source.  1 is fine.  2 is not.

Distributing a non-perfect copy of a poem would be analogous to 1, not
2.  For a statue, I think the analogy breaks down.

> Plus there is the word verbatim in the license. Section 4.
>
> http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
>
> Define verbatim:
>
> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/verbatim
>
> I see that requiring perfect copies.

I'm not sure what thefreedictionary says, but the word "verbatim"
means "word for word", not "perfect".  A non-perfect copy of a poem
certainly can be word-for-word.  All that is needed is for the words
to be recognizable, and the same.

Of course, the GPL is meant for software, which is a literary work,
not a visual work.  The word "verbatim" might very well mean "perfect"
in terms of a visual work (though really the word "verbatim" shouldn't
be used for a non-literary work).


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