🚀 go-pugleaf

n-reply-to: burley@gnu.ai.mit.edu's message of 10 Oct 94 19:41:44 GMT
Xref: courier.urbana.mcd.mot.com comp.lang.misc:13761 gnu.misc.discuss:17256

Leaving aside the heat between Tim Smith and Craig Burley, and leaving
aside what FSF does or doesn't claim, because I don't think you really
need to consider either, what Tim said:

|   If we apply the arguments FSF used last year during the gmp/RIPEN
|   debate, then if the only implementation of that language is GPL'ed,
|   you could only distribute source code written in that language
|   under GPL, because leaving it to the end user to obtain the compiler
|   is equivalent to shipping the compiler yourself if there is only
|   one compiler available.  As soon as someone else implements the
|   language (no matter how badly), it will then be OK to ship source
|   in that language under non-GPL licenses.

is not legally indefensible.  The definition of "derivative work" in
the Copyright Act is quite broad, its application to software is not
well defined, and a lot of things that seem intuitively to be OK are
arguably infringing.  I think the claim that code written in a language
is a derivative work of the specification of that language is
defensible within the words of the Copyright Act.  I don't like that
conclusion, but I wouldn't want my future income to depend on a court
rejecting it.

Don't knock the FSF on this issue - the case they have claimed
(distribution of proprietary code intended to link with interfaces that
are available only in GPLed code) is a small fraction of the "derivative
work" space and the areas they have disclaimed are much larger and more
important.  The last clause of Tim's paragraph points to the important
distinction - the GPL allows other people to implement equivalent
interfaces, thereby removing the derivative work claim; copyright
holders on other languages and interface specifications are under no
onus to do the same.  There is no reason to assume you can independently
implement a published interface unless the copyright holder specifically
authorizes such implementation.  There are legal battles currently in
progress on this issue, but I don't see any reason to be optimistic that
the results will go in favor of a "right to implement".

scott
--
scott preece
motorola/mcg urbana design center	1101 e. university, urbana, il   61801
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