Re: Use of GPL'd code with proprietary programs

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Thu, 2004-07-08 at 22:36 +0200, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> <quote>
> 
> RMS: We have no say in what is considered a derivative work. That 
> is a matter of copyright law, decided by courts. When copyright 
> law holds that a certain thing is not a derivative of our work, 
> then our license for that work does not apply to it. Whatever our 
> licenses say, they are operative only for works that are 
> derivative of our code. 
> 
> A license can say that we will treat a certain kind of work as if 
> it were not derivative, even if the courts think it is. The Lesser 
> GPL does this in certain cases, in effect declining to use some 
> of the power that the courts would give us. But we cannot tell the 
> courts to treat a certain kind of work as if it were derivative, 
> if the courts think it is not.
> 
> </quote>
> 
> Now, do you seriously believe that they will be able to convince 
> a non-drunken district judge (appellate and supreme folk aside
> for a moment) that "works that use the library" are in fact
> derivative works under copyright law?

It appears all cases involving the GPL so far have settled out of
court... except for that court order _in favour_, on one of the recent
netfilter cases, I wonder why...

Rui

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