Fedora Users — Re: FC4 or FC5

Sean <seanlkml@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:40:42 -0500
Les Mikesell wrote:

> On Thu, 2006-06-15 at 09:50 -0400, Sean wrote:

> It is the FSF's interpretation that anything that needs a GPL'd
> library to function is a derived work of that library even when
> distributed separately . I'm sure that with sufficient funds
> you could find well-trained lawyers to argue either side of
> that case, but it sounds like insanity to me that you can violate
> a copyright without copying the material in question. Or that
> whether a violation exists or not depends on whether or not a
> functionally equivalent library exists under a different license,
> something that none of the parties involved might not know and
> that could change without their involvement or knowledge.

Well it makes sense to me that if you're building a program that
relies on a library, that it is a derived work of that library.
But i'm not a lawyer.

ftware.

Sean

--

I keep seeing the term 'derived' used a lot in these GPL discussions.

Hum, I'm not a lawyer, but as a computer programmer I fail to see how an
application program that I write could be considered a 'derived' work of
some generic support library that knows nothing of the logic of my
application program.

Here is a dictionary definition definition of derived (I realize that lawyers can
ever pervert that):

formed or developed from something else; not original; "the belief that classes
and organizations are secondary and derived"- John Dewey
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

How could by application be derived by this definition? The library routine is
only there to do a function or to supply data that my program needs.

My program is not formed from this GPL library in question.