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sm-commit - Re: [SM-Commit] BZR Change 10 to stage-root sorcery by David Brown <dmlb2000@dmlb2004>

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  • From: Arwed von Merkatz <v.merkatz AT gmx.net>
  • To: sm-commit AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Commit] BZR Change 10 to stage-root sorcery by David Brown <dmlb2000@dmlb2004>
  • Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 10:24:23 +0200

On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 01:38:20AM -0500, Jeremy Blosser (emrys) wrote:
> On Apr 11, David Brown [dmlb2000 AT gmail.com] wrote:
> > On 4/11/06, Jeremy Blosser (emrys) <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org> wrote:
> > > On Apr 12, bzr AT mail.sourcemage.org [bzr AT mail.sourcemage.org] wrote:
> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > revno: 10
> > > > committer: David Brown <dmlb2000@dmlb2004>
> > > > branch nick: stage-root
> > > > timestamp: Tue 2006-04-11 22:32:44 -0700
> > > > message:
> > > > more updates for confmeld
> > > > talked to sandall about it since I'm really writing the thing and I
> > > > am
> > > > making something uniq (to us) I have the copyright to it and I'm
> > > > giving
> > > > that to the Source Mage Developers :) so I don't need to have any of
> > > > the other copyright stuff on there since they have nothing to do
> > > > with
> > > > this.
> > >
> > > The fact that it integrates with sorcery the way it does probably makes
> > > it
> > > a derived work, which means their copyright could well still apply.
> > > Just
> > > like if you make a new application and link it against gtk, the gtk
> > > copyright terms apply.
> > >
> > > Of course, none of us are copyright lawyers (that I know of).
> >
> > But this could very well be a separate package it's only a matter of
> > convenience that it's packaged with sorcery the only thing it depends
> > on is the install_config_file function and the fact that the config
> > stage area for configuration files looks similar to the tablet setup,
> > which Andrew wrote.
>
> You're doing . /etc/sorcery/config at the end there, that's the code
> equivalent of #include <allofsorcery>, is it not? Whether it's necessary
> for what you want or not, it's what you have, and the final resulting code
> is going to be a derived work of what went before it.

Being a derived work doesn't say anything about who holds the copyright.
If you write a completely new file, that file is _only_ copyrighted by
you. You can't change the _license_ of that file to something else
because it's a derived work, but that doesn't mean any of the other
authors of the whole thing have any copyright on your code. That's the
whole reason re-licensing projects takes consent of all contributors,
and the reason the fsf requires copyright assignment for some projects.

> > I think you are confusing copyright with license.
>
> They're the same thing when it comes to software. Having copyright over
> something is what allows you to license the way people may use it. The GPL
> is a license that the copyright holder uses to say "you can copy, modify,
> and restribute this software, which you wouldn't have the right to do if I,
> the copyright holder, didn't say you could".
>
> It's possible one could make the argument we've removed all the code from
> the previous copyright holders and achieved our own implementation, but I
> really don't know what kind of legal precedent there might be for that.
> Normally if you want to accomplish that you start a code base from scratch
> vs. phasing out the original stuff over time.



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--
Arwed v. Merkatz Source Mage GNU/Linux developer
http://www.sourcemage.org




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