Put it in laymen's terms

[Ken Arromdee]

On 31 Jul 1999 bruce at perens.com wrote:
> It's a moot point for Linux because of the following exception to the GPL:
> 
> 	NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
> 	services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
> 	of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
> 	Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
> 	Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
> 	kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
> 
> 			Linus Torvalds

It is not clear that Linus can do that.  If you are of the belief that a
system call produces a derivative work, then when Linux says that it does not
do so, he is modifying the license.  He can modify the license on his own code,
but he cannot modify the license on code which other people have contributed.