a proposed change to the OSD

[Dr. David Alan Gilbert]

* Bruce Perens (bruce at perens.com) wrote:

> IANAL, of course.

No problem - neither am I.

> For software, "use" is execution of the software.
> 
> Copyright law doesn't speak much of software at all, so we can't rely
> on that for a definition and must look at court cases for precedents.
> 
> Creation of derived works is a separate right from use under
> copyright law. It can be restricted separately from use, and vice
> versa. The act of modifying software creates a derived work
> that is partially your copyright, and partially that of the original
> contributor.

So as an author of a library or the like I need to grant the license to
use and......

> There is some contention regarding whether linking creates a derived
> work, and exactly one court case on the topic that isn't definitive.

So to allow someone to distribute a statically linked version of
something linked with a library; I should probably give them rights to 
make a derivative work; but also would need to give them rights to
grant use licenses on the derivative?

Dave
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