Copyleft/guide Changeset - 4daa86b30f10

Changeset - 4daa86b30f10

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Bradley Kuhn (bkuhn) - 9 years ago 2014-11-11 01:16:07
bkuhn@ebb.org

Some rewording of this section, mostly wordsmith.

1 file changed with 21 insertions and 14 deletions:

compliance-guide.tex

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compliance-guide.tex

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 \section{Evaluate License Applicability}
 \label{derivative-works}
 Political discussion about the GPL often centers around the ``copyleft''
 requirements of the license.  Indeed, the license was designed primarily
 to embody this licensing feature.  Most companies adding non-trivial
 features (beyond mere porting and bug-fixing) to GPL'd software (and
 thereby invoking these requirements) are already well aware of their
 more complex obligations under the license.\footnote{There has been much legal
   discussion regarding copyleft and derivative works.  In practical
   reality, this issue is not relevant to the vast majority of companies
   distributing GPL'd software.  Those interested in this issue should study
   \tutorialpartsplit{\textit{Detailed Analysis of the GNU GPL and Related
       Licenses}'s Section on derivative works}{\S~\ref{derivative-works} of
     this tutorial}.}
 However, experienced  GPL enforcers find that few redistributors'
 Political discussion about the GPL often centers around determining the
 ``work'' that must be licensed under GPL, or in other words, ``what is the
 derivative and/or combined work that was created''.  Nearly ever esoteric
 question asked by lawyers seek to consider that question
 \footnote{\tutorialpartsplit{In fact, a companion work, \textit{Detailed Analysis of the GNU GPL and Related
       Licenses} contains an entire section discussing derivative works}{This tutorial in fact
   also addresses the issue at length in~\S~\ref{derivative-works}}.} (perhaps because
 that question explores exciting legal issues while the majority of the GPL
 deals with much more mundane ones).
 Of course, GPL was designed
 primarily to embody the licensing feature of copyleft.
 However, most companies who add
 complex features to and make combinations with GPL'd software
 are already well aware of their
 more complex obligations under the license that require complex legal
 analysis.  And, there are few companies overall that engage in such
 activities. Thus,  in practical reality, this issue is not relevant to the vast
 majority of companies distributing GPL'd software.
 Thus, experienced  GPL enforcers find that few redistributors'
 compliance challenges relate directly to combined work issues in copyleft.
 Instead, the distributions of GPL'd
 systems most often encountered typically consist of a full operating system

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