Re: Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

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Horst H. von Brand wrote:

With any other license, I could at least have done a diff against
the original copies and my work and given that away

Nope. The diff is very clearly a work derived from the original (you just
can't cook up a difference to the original without the original;

Perhaps, but it is not at all clear whether copyright restricts you from distributing such changes because there is an obvious conflict with your rights to use your copy in the ways you want. How would you relate what you are saying to the recent ruling in the UK that selling modified ROMS to someone who already has the original does not violate copyright law? http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080612/0055131385.shtml That's not entirely universal and in the US the DMCA would make it illegal to break encryption for the purpose of circumventing copy protection whether or not the actual copying was legal - but it seems like the right approach to me.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. It's a pretty safe bet that
there is more code that relies on Microsoft libraries than anything
else

So? It /uses/ the libraries in the way the relevant license spells out, and
you can the distribute what you build on them as said license allows. It
isn't taking pieces of said libraries and distributing modified versions of
them at all.

Again, this is not at all clear.

                                The FSF says otherwise and that if the
resulting 'work as a whole' would be be a derived work, then the
components, including my own work, can't be distributed unless all are
restricted by the GPL.

Your own work, if it depends intimately on the original, is clearly a
derived work. And you need the owner's permission to create it in the first
place.

No, I need the owner's permission to have my copy in the first place. I don't need his permission to use it or add my own changes to it.

If said owner grants that permission only under the condition that
your modifications have to be distributed under GPL...

Once I have my copy, said owner has no more to say about what I can do with it. Copyright prevents subsequent redistribution without permission but it is not anyone else's business if I redistribute the work that I've added to my copy to someone else who also has a copy of the original work.

... because you were granted the right of having a copy by the owner of the
relevant rights, which you got under certain conditions.

There are no conditions to receiving a copy a copy under the GPL. And if there were, they would have to comply with the rights you have to use the copy you've gotten.

Using a library is one thing, taking its code and modifying it something
quite different; and distributing a copy of the original or a modified
version are yet again completely different. For each of those activities
you need separate permissions.

Sometimes. Some of those things are basic rights, recognized differently in different places.

--
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx

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