Re: GPL and other licences

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

On Fri, 03 Feb 2006 08:20:32 +0100, Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de>  
wrote:

> Because just like with combined executable, copying source code doesn't
> create a derivative work. If anything, it creates a compilation.

Your examples of juxtaposing works on the same medium is indeed just a  
compilation.
However, not all ways of comining parts of different works will be a  
compilation.
If I take parts of copyrighted pictures, cut them into pieces and put the  
pieces
together in a collage, then I have created a derivative work. It is a work  
because
it expresses my creative effort. It is a derivative work because it uses  
the other
works to do so.

You can combine software to create both a plain compilation and a derived  
work.
I shall not try to draw the line, but I'd put my money on there being more
derived works than you seem to think.

> When you print two short stories on the same sheet of paper (or PDF),  
> you're
> not creating a derivative work.

Exactly. There is no creative effort on my part in just putting one after  
the other
(except perhaps if the selection of stories in itself has artistic merit).

> And the same goes when you put several
> pieces of source code under different licenses in one file. Think
> tarball.

Intentions matter. Putting things in a tar file is usaually with the  
intention
of moving them together. Putting them in the same jar file usually means  
using
them together. A jar file can be a single program, combining different  
works
into one derived work.

> Yeah, "new program"? That "new program" is nothing but a compilation
> (as in copyright law) of multiple computer program works.

All programs are combinations of 0's and 1's. That does not mean that the
combination is not a (new) work. The act of comining can create new works,
even if the only creative action is that of selecting what to combine and
how.

/L
--
Lasse R. Nielsen - atwork@infimum.dk
 'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine'