Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Joerg Schilling Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:
The GPL makes claims that are in conflict with the law because these claims are not amongst what the list in the law permits and that are thus void.
The GPL is all that gives you permission to distribute. If it is void then you have no permission at all to distribute any covered code.
Fortunately judges know better than you....
If you read the reasoning from judgements, you would know that judges just look at the parts of the GPL that are not in conflict with the law. Judges know that making the GPL void as a whole would be a desaster.
Both legal systems have the same results: They prevent the GPL from using it's own interpretation os what a derivative work is and the rules from the laws apply instead.
So apply copyright law without a license. You can't distribute. I agree that the FSF interpretation about distributing source with the intention that the end user does the link with other components is pretty far off the wall, but static binaries are clearly one 'work as a whole' and dynamic linkage is kind of fuzzy. US juries are supposed to focus on intent and are pretty unpredictable - I wouldn't want to take a chance on what they might decide.
Given the fact that there is not a single trustworthy lawjer in the US that writes about the GPL and that follows your interpreation, I am relaxed.
These rules make many combinations a "collective work" that is permitted. The cdrtools and ZFS on Linux match these rules - well, I assume that the ZFS integration code follows the rules that are needed for a clean collective work.
Can you point out a reference to case where this has been validated? That is, a case where the only licence to distribute a component of something is the GPL and distribution is permitted by a court ruling under terms where the GPL does not apply to the 'work as a whole'?
There was no court case, but VERITAS published a modifed version of gtar where additional code was added by binary only libraries from VERITAS. The FSF did never try to discuss this is public even though everybody did know about the existence. As long as the FSF does not try to sue VERITAS, we are safe - regardless what intentional nonsense you can read on the FSF webpages.
Cdrtools follow these rules:
No code from CDDL and GPL is mixed into a single fileHow is 'a file' relevant to the composition of the translated binary where the copyright clearly extends? And why do you have any rules if you think the GPL doesn't pose a problem with combining components? More to the point, why don't you eliminate any question about that problem with a dual license on the code you control?
???
I completely follow the claims from both licenses, so there is no need to follow your wishes.
Non-GPL code used in a colective work was implemented independently from the GPLd parts and form a separate work that may be used without the GPLd code as well.How 'you' arrange them isn't the point. Or even any individual who builds something that isn't intended for redistribution. But for other people to consider them generally usable as components in redistributable projects there's not much reason to deal with the inability to combine with other widely used components. What's the point - and what do you have against the way perl handles it?
You are of course wrong and you ignore everything I explained you before.
If your idesyncratic GPL interpretation was true, your whole Linux distro would be illegal. When do you withdraw your Linux distro?
Jörg