Put it in laymen's terms

[Forrest J. Cavalier III]

> Would someone be so kind as to make clear for me what the difference is
> between a system call, and the use of a function in a program.
> 
> These terms are used to describe when something is or isn't a derived work
> for purposes of copyright.  
> 
> Bruce has stated that copyright law recognizes this distinction.  I haven't
> read this in any cases.  After you all have defined what these terms mean,
> can someone point me to case law that makes this distinction?  Thank you.

Layman's terms are inadequate to express legal realities.  Surely
you know that (based on your sig.)

Maybe I can explain the basic aspects...

   Copyright law concerns distributing copies of published works
   in portion or entirety.

   Cutting and pasting a function (or even retyping from a book)
   when writing a program creates a "derived work."

   The GPL says, "this license lets you use the software only if
   you agree to place the GPL on all derived works."

That's all pretty sinple and clear.  As Bruce replied in one of the
Slashdot responses, it is possible to take copyrighted, GPL'ed source
material, put it into a "library", and then create a program which 
makes use of that library. (By "makes use" meaning "calls functions
in that library.")  This creates unclear, debatable issues legally and
ethically.

Frankly, I'm interested in learning more about the ethical opinions 
of Bruce, because we can debate the legal issues a long time before
any court system will render a stable opinion....And most members of
civilization should be making decisions on ethical grounds, not
legal ones...

Legally, 
    the application making calls into the GPL'ed library 
    may or may not be a derived work, depending on how it was
    developed.  If you copied any software from the GPL'ed software,
    from a legal standpoint, it is clearly a derived work.  It is
    illegal and unethical to not comply with the terms of the GPL.

    But, if you did not copy the GPL'ed software, and further, even
    if you did not even touch or see the GPL'ed software when developling
    your application, then legally it is clearly not a derived work.
    This is sometimes called "cleanroom" development.

    There is some legal fuzziness if you used the GPL'ed software for
    testing purposes.  Then it may or may not be seen by the courts
    as a derived work.

Ethically, 
    there are some issues for cleanroom developed software, even if 
    there are no legal ones....And I posed some ethical questions to
    Bruce in a message to this list several days ago, in the "gpl 
    backlash" thread.  

    Bruce's opinions are very well respected, and I want to
    know how he thinks about the situations I posed.

Then he was rudely :-) interrupted by the Ask Slashdot activity,
and having his servers slashdotted...  Nothing like trial by
fire to keep programmers on their toes  :-)

Hopefully, he will get a chance to get back to my questions.
I'll repost them next week if I don't see a reply.