Approval of IWL - Consolidated Response

[Russ Nelson]

Gernot Heiser writes:
 > >> Because the GPL relies on there being a single work.  The GPL doesn't
 > >> try to reach across an API into other pieces of software.
 > 
 > That's not what the FSF says, they claim that linking against GPLed
 > code makes your code GPLed, a clear case of reaching across APIs.

No, they claim that if you create an API for the specific purpose of
not creating a single work, in order to escape the GPL's copyright
license, that a judge will see through the subterfuge and call it a
single work, applying the GPL to the whole.

A judge could use reasonable, evidence-based decision points: is the
API published or secret?  Is the API used by any other program?  How
old is the API?  Is the API well designed according to accepted
computer science practices?  Does it hide or expose private
information?  Do both ends of the API use different or incompatible
licenses?

That is a reasonable position to take.  It's completely
technology-independent, so the API could be implemented using dynamic
linking, shared memory, named sockets, pipes, TCP/IP ports, or
whatever.

I know of nothing in copyright law that supports the idea that
separate works become a single work SOLELY because they communicate
through an API.  Not even if that API is dynamic linking.

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