Clarification of GPL

Alexander Terekhov TEREKHOV at de.ibm.com
Sat Dec 13 18:06:40 UTC 2003


Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
[...]
> Regarding legal binding  -- In all these years, only the SCO 
> has been silly enough to question its bindingness.

OTOH, SCO is probably in full agreement with Linus on this:

groups.google.com/groups?selm=ZhWT-39U-3%40gated-at.bofh.it

<quote>

> Yes, but they will cite the prohibition against 
> *creating* derived works.

So?

The same prohibition exists with the GPL. You are not 
allowed to create and distribute a derived work unless 
it is GPL'd.

I don't see what you are arguing against. It is very 
clear: a kernel module is a derived work of the kernel 
by default. End of story.

You can then try to prove (through development history 
etc) that there would be major reasons why it's not 
really derived. 

</quote>

Now replace "kernel" with SysV UNIX and GPL with 
"confidential" (OCO or something like that). How nice. 

regards,
alexander.

P.S. 

www.byte.com/documents/s=8276/byt1055784622054/0616_marshall.html

<quote>

GPL

"GPL has the same derivative rights concept [as UNIX]," 
according to Sontag...

</quote>

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