Which License should I pick?

[Scott Long]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Daniel Carrera wrote:

> > SECOND LINE OF QUESTIONS:
> > 
> > The project itself performs actions on the in-core binary images of
> > running processes. It is capable of saving snapshots of the address
> > spaces of running processes to disk. I would like to have
> > clarification whether or not such snapshots would be considered
> > "derived works" of the programs they came from. Would it be legal to
> > distribute one of these binary snapshots if it came from a running
> > program which is licensed under a more restrictive license such as the
> > GPL?
> 
> I'm not sure I understand this.
> 
> Snapshots are binary objects, right?
> 
> Yes, you can release them under the GPL, but I don't see the point.

No, that isn't what I meant -- I'm not talking about "releasing" the 
snapshots under any license at all. This line of questioning is 
totally unrelated to the license I choose for *my* project. What I'm 
asking is whether it would actually be illegal to distribute such 
snapshots for the following reason:

Imagine that I take a memory snapshot of a running Emacs process. I then 
send this snapshot to somebody else. If the snapshot is considered a 
derived work, then I've just made a "binary only" distribution of Emacs, 
therefore violating the GPL. This would mean that in order to exchange 
such snapshots, people would have to make the source code to Emacs 
available from the same location, correct?

Basically my question is, if I use my program to take a snapshot of a 
GPL'd program and then post that snapshot on a website, am I violating 
the GPL? If that were true, it would seem that posting a core file of a 
GPL'd application on the website would also be illegal.

The difference being, a core file actually contains executable 
instructions from the original binary on disk. My format is different -- 
it only contains the DIFFERENCES between what is in memory and what is on 
disk. So I'm wondering if my snapshots are derived works or not.

Thanks,

Scott Long

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