[License-discuss] License incompatibility (was Re: Open source license chooser choosealicense.com

[John Cowan]

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> Does the distribution of a GPL-licensed work along with those "separate
> works" convert them into something "not separate" in the copyright
> sense? Does a staple or a paper clip or a book binding convert separate
> works to something not separate in the copyright sense?

Plainly not.  But suppose Bob takes Alice's program under the GPL and
and adds a bunch of calls to syslog() so that it logs what it is doing
(and suppose further that this is not a de minimis or merely mechanical
change).  Do you then hold that this is not a derivative work either,
and therefore need not be licensed by Bob under the GPL?  After all,
it is not as if you can't trace every single bit in the source code or
resulting object code to Alice or Bob respectively, at least assuming
the compiler is not over-clever.

-- 
"Well, I'm back."  --Sam        John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org>