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On Wednesday, August 19, 2015 9:09:59 PM Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 7:40 PM, Fernando Rodriguez |
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> <frodriguez.developer@×××××××.com> wrote: |
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> > |
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> > The law is not clear about that. But how can it not be a derived work if |
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it |
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> > doesn't work without it? |
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> > |
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> |
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> A is only a derived work of B if the law says it is. |
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The letter of the law is constantly changing. I'll grant that your argument is |
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more inline with the letter of the law because the law wasn't written with |
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this specific case in mind. But the FSF's argument is more inline with it's |
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spirit. Until a court decides one way or the other it's just a grey are so |
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there's no point in arguing. |
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> My pot isn't a derived work of my stove. My browser isn't a derived |
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> work of the kernel it runs on. |
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> |
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> Copyright law doesn't talk about interoperability when it comes to |
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> derived works. It talks about translations, adaptations, etc. These |
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> are derived works because they incorporate substantial portions of the |
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> original work. MST3K incorporates substantial portions of the movies |
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> they're parodying. Rifftrax does not. That is the difference. |
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> |
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> A kernel module does not incorporate substantial portions of the kernel. |
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> |
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> And interoperability is actually a legal defense against copyright. |
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> If the only way to make something interoperate with something else is |
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> to partially copy it, the court tends to view that as fair use. |
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The GPL symbols are not necessary for interoperability. For that you need |
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little more that access to the hardware and an interface to userspace. Most of |
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those GPL symbols are convenience routines to enable reuse of code among |
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different subsystems and drivers. |
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|
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-- |
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Fernando Rodriguez |
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