GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon [LWN.net]

Aggregation

Posted Sep 26, 2007 23:36 UTC (Wed) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

Aggregation means the works are not intermingled and simply sharing a distribution medium (which could be a device rather than a disk). They have no obligation to share source that simply makes use of GPLed components or is simply in the same device as the GPLed components, unless it is intimately entangled with the internals of the GPLed components. [Over-simplification - there are lots of specific situations with different implications.]

Aggregation

Posted Sep 27, 2007 11:34 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Well in the GPl license is specificly states that aggregations are except.

> These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
> identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
> and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
> themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
> sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
> distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
> on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
> this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
> entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

> Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
> your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
> exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
> collective works based on the Program.

> In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
> with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
> a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
> the scope of this License.

What this ultimately means is decided by the copyright code of a paticular country.

That is, being a copyright license, the GPL has no effect over anything that is not copyrighted/copyrightable or is not a derived work. I don't think the GPL could have any effect on a aggregated work even if it said it did.

Not-a-Lawyer.

Aggregation

Posted Sep 27, 2007 14:20 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

I wonder... at what point does aggregation end and creationg of a derivative work begin?

* Including two works on an ISO 9660 filesystem
* Including two works in a tar archive
* Including two works in an ar archive
* Including two works in an ar archive the name of which ends in '.a'
* Including two works in an ELF file

Aggregation

Posted Sep 27, 2007 19:18 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

It's not so hard, if you move away from the minutiae of file and media formats.

The root question is, must the code you wrote be released under the GPL? The answer is usually simple: does some part of what it does depend on GPL code? I.e., can you run it without also running GPL code, or does some part of it depend on the GPL code to function? If the former, it's just aggregation. If the latter, it's derived.

The Linux kernel is released under a special exception: user-level code that makes system calls is not a derived work, period. The LGPL presents a similar exception: if you release your product in such a way that the user can plug in their own version of the LGPL code, your code isn't a derived work. Linux offers another special exception: a driver that depends only on explicitly exported internal kernel interfaces isn't derived.

Busybox is implementing a standard interface defined by POSIX. A program may depend on Busybox to do its work without becoming a derived work, providing it doesn't depend on non-POSIX features of Busybox.

(Not a lawyer.)

Aggregation

Posted Oct 4, 2007 6:38 UTC (Thu) by kzm (guest, #47358) [Link]

> The root question is, must the code you wrote be released under the GPL?
> The answer is usually simple: does some part of what it does depend on GPL
> code? I.e., can you run it without also running GPL code,

So for a hardware device, you would argue that any device which runs a Linux kernel must be GPL'ed in its entirety? Including all software, firmware, and for that matter, hardware?

> The Linux kernel is released under a special exception: user-level code
> that makes system calls is not a derived work, period.

I always thought of that (and the binary modules issues) as Linus' interpretation (which at least in my jurisdiction carries considerable weight, especially when the licence is given without compensation), rather than a variation of the GPL.

At any rate, I think this interpretation is a good one: standard and available interfaces is what separates different works, messing directly with the implementation is what makes a derived work.

-k