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The exact analogy in FSF terms which you were careful to avoid is - An executable created by a GPL compiler will have to be GPL licensed. This is where your ana

by dman 15y ago

The exact analogy in FSF terms which you were careful to avoid is - An executable created by a GPL compiler will have to be GPL licensed. This is where your analogy breaks down because this is explicitly not the case.

Erwin 15y ago
gcc uses a special library (outside of the C library) called libgcc with some builtin functions (I don't recall what's left there these days -- floating point stuff, 64-bit long long support on non-64 bit platforms?) That library -- per definition part of GCC -- had to be explicitly made exempt from gcc's GPL license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html otherwise yes, all your compiled code would have to be distributed using GPL. For a long while RMS blocked adding plugins to gcc because he though that would allow proprietary vendors to violate the spirit of GPL. I'd expect other languages that compile to binary code to fare even worse here -- gcc is better at separating its helper library -- but I'm not sure what other compilers than gcc are GPL'ed.
jonhendry 15y ago
What about GPL-licensed javascript code used in a web app? (Or in, say, a desktop application that uses a WebView for part of its interface, in which it uses the GPL-licensed javascript). There may be some content or code from Apple that gets baked into your iBooks to enable some functionality or other. Maybe bits of Apple-developed javascript that get stuck in to mediate between the HTML and the iBooks application.
- nirvana 15y ago
  You're correct. The iBooks Author app embeds Apple code, both HTML, and Javascript, in the form of easy to use Widgets that enable the functions that make the book more than just text, such as photo galleries, embedded movies, etc. Thus an iBook produced with the app is a derivative work that includes within it Apple copyrighted code. Apple's ability to restrict the use of such derivative works is the very same ability the GPL relies on.
nirvana 15y ago
>you were careful to avoid Don't attribute to others derogatory actions as an argument technique. >This is where your analogy breaks down because this is explicitly not the case. The existence of software that does not fit my analogy does not change the fact that there are many situations where the analogy still holds. In fact, the GPL itself is an example of the analogy holding- the GPL prohibits certain kinds of commercial use of creations derived by the thing protected by GPL, just as the Author app does.
- dman 15y ago
  Ah I see where our difference in opinion originates from - you look at the book outputted by the tool as a derived work. I must admit I never conceived of this possibility, and I am still trying to digest it. I wonder how many authors who use Apple's product will realise that after two years of hard work to create a manuscript, just by hitting publish the outputted object will not wholly belong to them.
  - Turing_Machine 15y ago
    The generated book contains Apple's code. It's definitely a derivative work. That said, a person would be foolish to write the entire book using this. Write your text and create your graphics in your editors of choice, import them into this tool to create a nice layout for the iBookstore, then import them into another tool to create a nice layout for Kindle or whatever. You might have to do that anyway -- I've yet to see a tool that will generate a nicely-formatted ebook in both MOBI (Kindle) and ePub formats. Conversion tools like Calibre work if all you care about is reading the text, but the output often looks like ass if the original eBook used anything other than the most basic formatting (that said, a lot of commercially-produced eBooks look like ass anyway, so maybe that's not such a big deal).
    - statictype 15y ago
      It's a derived work in the same way that linking to stdlib from your program makes it a derived work. Which is to say, no, it's not reasonable to call books you wrote with this tool to be considered a derived work.
jws 15y ago
Depends on the FSF tool. For many years the output of Bison (FSF's yacc clone) would propagate a GPL onto your entire program is you used it.
eridius 15y ago
If I remember correctly, the GPLv3 license prohibits creating DRM'd content. Or more insidiously, a GPLv3-licensed compiler (e.g. recent GCC) cannot be used to produce an executable that contains DRM code without being in violation of the license, despite the fact that the executable itself is not covered under the GPL. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not willing to wade into the sea of legalese that is the GPLv3 right now just to verify this.
- makomk 15y ago
  As far as I recall, the GPLv3 has two different anti-DRM restrictions, neither of which does what you say it does. The first restriction is that if you include GPLv3 code in certain kinds of consumer hardware and it accepts firmware updates, you must give the end users any keys that are required to install and run their own modified version of that code. The second restriction is intended to exempt any DRM system based around GPLv3 code from anti-circumvention laws. There's no restriction on compiler output that I'm aware of.
- tadfisher 15y ago
  From my understanding, you can create as much "DRM" code as you want, but you must provide the cryptographic key along with the source. This extends to the platform that the code runs on; for example, "Tivo" can't distribute a GPL3 binary in their set-top boxes, lock it down using a cryptographic signature, and fail to distribute the signing key. It would be impractical for the GPL to determine what counts as DRM and what does not; so they merely require "free modification of the Software".

by dman 15y ago

Erwin 15y ago

gcc uses a special library (outside of the C library) called libgcc with some builtin functions (I don't recall what's left there these days -- floating point stuff, 64-bit long long support on non-64 bit platforms?) That library -- per definition part of GCC -- had to be explicitly made exempt from gcc's GPL license: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html otherwise yes, all your compiled code would have to be distributed using GPL. For a long while RMS blocked adding plugins to gcc because he though that would allow proprietary vendors to violate the spirit of GPL. I'd expect other languages that compile to binary code to fare even worse here -- gcc is better at separating its helper library -- but I'm not sure what other compilers than gcc are GPL'ed.

jonhendry 15y ago

What about GPL-licensed javascript code used in a web app? (Or in, say, a desktop application that uses a WebView for part of its interface, in which it uses the GPL-licensed javascript). There may be some content or code from Apple that gets baked into your iBooks to enable some functionality or other. Maybe bits of Apple-developed javascript that get stuck in to mediate between the HTML and the iBooks application.

nirvana 15y ago
You're correct. The iBooks Author app embeds Apple code, both HTML, and Javascript, in the form of easy to use Widgets that enable the functions that make the book more than just text, such as photo galleries, embedded movies, etc. Thus an iBook produced with the app is a derivative work that includes within it Apple copyrighted code. Apple's ability to restrict the use of such derivative works is the very same ability the GPL relies on.

nirvana 15y ago

>you were careful to avoid Don't attribute to others derogatory actions as an argument technique. >This is where your analogy breaks down because this is explicitly not the case. The existence of software that does not fit my analogy does not change the fact that there are many situations where the analogy still holds. In fact, the GPL itself is an example of the analogy holding- the GPL prohibits certain kinds of commercial use of creations derived by the thing protected by GPL, just as the Author app does.

dman 15y ago
Ah I see where our difference in opinion originates from - you look at the book outputted by the tool as a derived work. I must admit I never conceived of this possibility, and I am still trying to digest it. I wonder how many authors who use Apple's product will realise that after two years of hard work to create a manuscript, just by hitting publish the outputted object will not wholly belong to them.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  The generated book contains Apple's code. It's definitely a derivative work. That said, a person would be foolish to write the entire book using this. Write your text and create your graphics in your editors of choice, import them into this tool to create a nice layout for the iBookstore, then import them into another tool to create a nice layout for Kindle or whatever. You might have to do that anyway -- I've yet to see a tool that will generate a nicely-formatted ebook in both MOBI (Kindle) and ePub formats. Conversion tools like Calibre work if all you care about is reading the text, but the output often looks like ass if the original eBook used anything other than the most basic formatting (that said, a lot of commercially-produced eBooks look like ass anyway, so maybe that's not such a big deal).
  - statictype 15y ago
    It's a derived work in the same way that linking to stdlib from your program makes it a derived work. Which is to say, no, it's not reasonable to call books you wrote with this tool to be considered a derived work.

jws 15y ago

Depends on the FSF tool. For many years the output of Bison (FSF's yacc clone) would propagate a GPL onto your entire program is you used it.

eridius 15y ago

If I remember correctly, the GPLv3 license prohibits creating DRM'd content. Or more insidiously, a GPLv3-licensed compiler (e.g. recent GCC) cannot be used to produce an executable that contains DRM code without being in violation of the license, despite the fact that the executable itself is not covered under the GPL. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not willing to wade into the sea of legalese that is the GPLv3 right now just to verify this.

makomk 15y ago
As far as I recall, the GPLv3 has two different anti-DRM restrictions, neither of which does what you say it does. The first restriction is that if you include GPLv3 code in certain kinds of consumer hardware and it accepts firmware updates, you must give the end users any keys that are required to install and run their own modified version of that code. The second restriction is intended to exempt any DRM system based around GPLv3 code from anti-circumvention laws. There's no restriction on compiler output that I'm aware of.
tadfisher 15y ago
From my understanding, you can create as much "DRM" code as you want, but you must provide the cryptographic key along with the source. This extends to the platform that the code runs on; for example, "Tivo" can't distribute a GPL3 binary in their set-top boxes, lock it down using a cryptographic signature, and fail to distribute the signing key. It would be impractical for the GPL to determine what counts as DRM and what does not; so they merely require "free modification of the Software".