[License-discuss] Open source commons

[John Cowan]

On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 5:02 PM Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:


> Almost all copyleft licenses are *compatible with each other* for
> aggregations ("collective works") because of OSD #1 ("the license shall not
> restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component
> of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several
> different sources").
>

I know your view that linked components constitute aggregations.  I may
even agree with you, especially on Thursdays.  But I think you will concede
that yours is a minority view.  That's what I was alluding to by saying
"according to common understanding".

But none of them are compatible with each other for *joint* "derivative
> works" without dual licensing. Fortunately, such joint derivative works are
> exceedingly rare in practical computer programming.
>

I don't believe that either.  People often insert patches into other
people's modules, and patches into the patches, and so on.  They do so in
the Linux kernel and gcc, as obvious examples.  It seems plain that such
patch-submitters intend their contributions to be merged to form a single
work, which is what a joint work is.


John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
                .e'osai ko sarji la lojban.
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