David Woodhouse wrote:
On Sun, 2008-06-15 at 17:13 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
Do do have an exact definition of what is not permitted?
I pasted a precise definition of 'collective work' already, didn't I?
That is unrelated to the question.
It is a work in which a number of separate and independent works are
assembled into one work.
The very definition of 'collective work' is that it is an aggregation of
other independent and separate works.
And aggregations are explicitly permitted which makes that discussion
irrelevant.
In order to create a collective work, you need the permission of the
copyright-holders of each of the constituent parts. If any _one_ of them
denies you that permission, then you may not distribute that collective
work.
And this part applies equally to every line of code and data. Having
source or not doesn't change the requirement for permission to
distribute - or give anyone more or less reason to question whether that
permission has been given.
As you know, the GPL makes an exception for 'mere aggregation on a
volume of a storage or distribution medium'. There is some scope for
debate on precisely what is covered by that exception, but not a huge
amount.
So the relevant discussion should be about whether there is a person
that can identify the separate parts.
I've been talking generically so far. Getting back to the particular
case of firmware and kernel drivers... these are claimed by the network
driver maintainer to be "intimately tied" "pieces of a coherent whole".
I really cannot see how that claim by an expert in the field can be
reconciled with a claim that the presence of the firmware is 'mere
aggregation on a volume of a storage medium'.
You could resolve that question by finding someone who can identify the
separate parts.
But it's not particularly well-phrased, so there is a grey area, and no
definitive 'right' answer until/unless it's been heard in court. There
are only 'likely' answers.
And at least in the US, copyright is a matter of civil law so it won't
go to court unless the holder of the copyright that is violated takes it
there.
When you distribute the firmware blobs as separate works, of _course_
the GPL doesn't apply to them.
But when you distribute those same blobs as part of a whole which is a
work based on the GPL'd Program, the distribution of the whole must be
on the terms of the GPL, whose permissions for other licensees extend to
the entire whole, and thus to each and every part, regardless of who
wrote it.
Unless they consist of separate parts that have been aggregated together...
But, I think you are the one missing the point at least from the
perspective of the FSF or anyone likely to take legal action on behalf
of the GPL. They claim that it doesn't matter if the components are
distributed separately or not. For example, you can't modify a GPL'd
component so that it needs a library under different terms even if the
parts are never distributed together.
Thus, it is not the intent of the GPL 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.
Whether it is a derivative or 'work as a whole' depends on the
relationship of the parts, not temporary physical proximity. If the
compiler keeps the parts separate so the downloading code can identify
them to download the correct separate data to the correct separate
device they are rather clearly separate things aggregated temporarily
within a file. This might be more obvious if it were easier for a human
to identify the parts, but that's a mechanical detail. The question of
whether the relationship of the runtime code makes it a derived work
might still remain, but it is unrelated to the bits of code and data
having been aggregated as permitted.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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