Re: GPL traitor !

[Hyman Rosen]

Joerg Schilling wrote:
> There is no difference between static and dynamic linking.

Of course there is. In the case of static linking, the resulting
file is a collective work containing components whose copyrights
are held by multiple owners. In order to copy such a collective
work, permission from each of the copyright holders is required.

> even a dynamically linked binary contains parts from glibc

If the process of translating a program causes the result to
contain copies of significant portions of a copyrighted work,
that result is a collective work and permission to copy it
must be acquired from all the copyright holders. Typically a
dynamically linked executable would not contain such copies,
but if you assert that Linux is different in this respect, I
have no reason to disagree with you.

> The idea that there is a difference comes from the incorrect
> assumption that you need to put a binary compiled from GPL
> sources under GPL too.

No, this is a correct assumption. A binary compiled from GPLed
source has the same copyright as the source - it is the same
program, because there is a single copyright in a computer program
for both the source and binary.

<http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/CopyrightCompendium/chapter_0300.asp>
    321.03 Relationship between source code and object code.
    The Copyright Office considers source code and object code
    as two representations of the same computer program. For
    registration purposes, the claim is in the computer program
    rather than in any particular representation of the program.
    Thus separate registrations are not appropriate for the source
    code and object code representations of the same computer program.

If the binary contains other components than those resulting from a
translation of the source, it is also a collective work and permission
to copy it must be granted by the copyright holders of each component.

> You simply cannot and it is sufficient to follow GPL section 3.

You cannot what?