Which License should I pick?

[Chuck Swiger]

On Dec 3, 2003, at 5:22 PM, Scott Long wrote:
> 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?

Per section 3a of the GPL, yes, or, alternatively, you could follow the 
option in section 3b and be willing to make a copy of the Emacs sources 
available to anyone who asked you for the next three years.

Or you could start with a precompiled distribution for which someone 
(perhaps a Linux vendor) has followed the terms of 3b, and make your 
snapshots available per 3c.

> 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.

A program consists of more than pure executable code.  Does your 
snapshot include any of the original preinitalized data, say if it lies 
on a page which also includes changed pre-initialized data?

-- 
-Chuck

--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3