Is a socket connection a derived work

[Chris D. Sloan]

On the GPL FAQ, there is a question:
	If a programming language interpreter is released under the
	GPL, does that mean programs written to be interpreted by it
	must be under GPL-compatible licenses?

You can see the answer at:
	http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL

My guess is that the same reasoning applies to a web server.  Namely,
that data is data, and hence if a program is transforming or
processing data, the output inherits the copyright of the input (that
is, it inherits your copyright, not that of the program which did the
processing).

If there is copyrighted material being included in the output, then
the whole output may need to be used in compliance with that
copyright, but I don't see how that would come up with a webserver
exactly.

IANAL, TINLA,

	Chris

On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 11:32:01PM -0700, Michael Rice wrote:
> Forgive me if these questions have been asked and answered and for any
> naivete enclosed herein (I'm not much of a lawyer). If I were to
> bundle/distribute a web-like server (that would be deployed with my
> product's installation) that is licensed under the terms of either the GPL
> or LGPL with a non-open source product, would my product be considered a
> derived work and therefore subject to the GPL or LGPL? That is to say that
> the only interaction between my product and the GPL/LGPL would be with HTTP
> over a socket? I have a system that I'm thinking about putting under the
> LGPL that would consist only of socket calls (no comments about weird app
> design, please). Would it be considered derived if, say less than 25% of the
> functionality of the non open source product came from the open source web
> server? What if more than 50%? Or is it even a question of percents? Thanks
> in advance!!
> --
> license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3


-- 
Chris Sloan
cds at cs.hmc.edu
--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3