Proposal for change to OSD#9

[Chris Travers]

Hi Rick;

On 8/26/07, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
>
>
> Yes.  In United States jurisdictions, if you want to know _exactly_ what
> makes one creative work a derivative of another, read relevant
> caselaw such as Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc.,
> FN53: 982 F.2d 693, 23 USPQ2d 1241 2d Cir. 1992 and Gates Rubber v.
> Bando Chemical, FN57: 9 F.3d 823, 28 USPQ2d 1503 10th Cir. 1993, in the
> context of an understanding of copyright law.  (If you don't have an
> understanding of copyright law, you'll need to acquire that, first.)



Thanks :-)  THese look like the basis for the Eclipse Licensing FAQ.
Gates Rubber is the case that the AFC test came from, iirc.  IANAL, of
course.

If you merely want to know in general terms what "derivative work"
> means, apply common sense.



No application of common sense can make a library a derivation of a program
which comes later and uses it.  This is my complaint against the GPL v3.
This does *not* usually apply forward to add-ins for GPLv3 software under a
test like the test from Gates Rubber, but actually seeks to enforce the
license on independant copyrighted works which came before.  This is my
problem with it :-)

Hence I don't see where we disagree.  Just because I make my program
dependant on your library may not be sufficient to make my program
derivative of yours, but in no way should my program's license extend to
reduce the permissions under which your library can be distributed.  This is
my concern over OSD #9.

Best Wishes;
Chris Travers
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