3 ms·

The GPL is a license that applies only to software code and not to the end-user software. A book allegory is more like an author decides to embed the several c

by bregma 5y ago

The GPL is a license that applies only to software code and not to the end-user software. A book allegory is more like an author decides to embed the several chapters of one of Rowling's "Harry Potter" books verbatim in a fanfic novel. You could buy or download the novel and have every right to read it, lend it, or re-sell it but the original fanfic author is in copyright violation. If Rowling had published her books under something akin to the GPL, there might be a legal question as to what constitutes a "derived work" (and this is a real thing in the book publishing world, complete with legals precedents) but at every point the license to use the copyrighted characters, locations, etc. applies only to the author of the derived work, not to their readers.

tsimionescu 5y ago
> The GPL is a license that applies only to software code and not to the end-user software. I don't know what you are trying to say with this. Binary code distributed to end users is a derived work of the source code, so there is no difference between distributing source code or binary code, from any point of view. And if I illegally create a copy of X's work and sell that copy to Y, X has a right to ask for Y's copy to be destroyed. And again, I was explicitly talking about the fact that work A can be a derived work of work B even if A includes no amount of B directly. If I re-tell Harry Potter in my own words, replacing every single phrase, name etc., but otherwise keeping the story identical in every way, then my work is almost certainly a derived work of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling is the only one who has a legal right to distribute the work I created - which also means she has a right to ask for the destruction of all copies of said work that I illegally distributed (not that this would be too easy to enforce). Similarly, the question arises: if I create a program that has a GCC-shaped hole in it, and distribute to end-users under a proprietary license, to be used with a copy of GCC that they obtain separately, is my work a derived work of GCC or not? This is a real legal question that the GPL has no bearing on.

by bregma 5y ago

tsimionescu 5y ago

> The GPL is a license that applies only to software code and not to the end-user software. I don't know what you are trying to say with this. Binary code distributed to end users is a derived work of the source code, so there is no difference between distributing source code or binary code, from any point of view. And if I illegally create a copy of X's work and sell that copy to Y, X has a right to ask for Y's copy to be destroyed. And again, I was explicitly talking about the fact that work A can be a derived work of work B even if A includes no amount of B directly. If I re-tell Harry Potter in my own words, replacing every single phrase, name etc., but otherwise keeping the story identical in every way, then my work is almost certainly a derived work of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling is the only one who has a legal right to distribute the work I created - which also means she has a right to ask for the destruction of all copies of said work that I illegally distributed (not that this would be too easy to enforce). Similarly, the question arises: if I create a program that has a GCC-shaped hole in it, and distribute to end-users under a proprietary license, to be used with a copy of GCC that they obtain separately, is my work a derived work of GCC or not? This is a real legal question that the GPL has no bearing on.