MS-PL/GPL compatibility, was Re: For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Lawrence Rosen]

Rick Moen wrote:
> As Matt points out, you have fundamentally misunderstood the notion of
> compilation copyright, and apparently confused it with that of
> collective works.  

Huh? The definitions of "collective work" [1] and "compilation" [2], while
different in 17 U.S.C 101, are pretty similar. Note that a "collective work"
is but one form of "compilation." I prefer to just use the term "collective
work" for software examples because folks tend to confuse "compilation" with
the act of running source code through a compiler, which it doesn't mean. 

What does your email mean? :-)

/Larry

[1] A "collective work" is a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or
encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and
independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole.

[2] A "compilation" is a work formed by the collection and assembling of
preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged
in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original
work of authorship. The term "compilation" includes collective works.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Moen [mailto:rick at linuxmafia.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 3:56 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: MS-PL/GPL compatibility, was Re: For Approval: Microsoft
> Permissive License
> 
> Quoting Chris Travers (chris.travers at gmail.com):
> 
> > That was not my question.  If I create an ISO image of a collection of
> > source works, that may effectively be copyrighted by me and is outside
> the
> > scope of the GPL v3 as you point out.
> 
> As Matt points out, you have fundamentally misunderstood the notion of
> compilation copyright, and apparently confused it with that of
> collective works.  I noted this trait in your postings a couple of
> hundred long paragraphs ago, but didn't think it worth going into, in
> context of other problems with your general approach.