GPL modules for a differently licensed OS'

Posted Sep 13, 2007 19:20 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
In reply to: GPL modules for a differently licensed OS' by and
Parent article: Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

You have to understand the GPL is based on the "derivative" part of copyright international laws, and these laws are not software-specific, and indeed their roots are older than computers.

Software people do not understand legal concepts and keep trying to reduce derivation to its technical implementations. (because they feel confident that once they've nailed derivation to a particular technical effect they'll be able to find another they can safely use).

The hard truth is derivative is anything that makes use of ideas/code in the protected work. So it does not matter how this use is effected. Using creative indirections does not make derivation moot. If you figure a technical way to use some protected work, the sum of protected work + your stuff is a derived work.

That is unless you can prove your stuff was designed for something else, and this something else was not heavily inspired by the protected work. Of course if that were the case you'd not be trying to squiggle past "derivation" definitions.

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GPL modules for a differently licensed OS'

Posted Sep 15, 2007 14:47 UTC (Sat) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (1 responses)

"The hard truth is derivative is anything that makes use of ideas/code in the protected work."

Well, no. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, it only protects the expression of ideas. You can rephrase those ideas in other language without violating the copyright. However, the Devil is in the details and the analysis is not simple. There are scads of court decisions on specific cases, many of which seem to conflict.

Also, copyright does not control "functional aspects". There is a fair amount of precedent indicating that copyright doesn't apply when a program is simply using or interfacing with another program - that even direct copying of code may be OK when it is necessary to allow interoperation.

scott

GPL modules for a differently licensed OS'

Posted Sep 16, 2007 19:54 UTC (Sun) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

Ideas in the protected work being idea expressions.

Anyway.

You are not allowed to "rephrase" a copyrighted works idea expressions.

Copyright law allows looking at something to produce something else. Copyright law allows not looking at something to produce the same thing.

But copyright law forbids translation of something in the same something in another language/medium/format whatever. It does not take a judge a lot to decide something else is effectively something else. But mere rephrasing won't do.

Just ask J K Rowling what she thinks about your legal theory. I believe she sent a few rephrasers to jail.