Re: GPL traitor !

[Hyman Rosen]

David Kastrup wrote:
> An executable image stored in parts is still an executable image.  Just
> because the assembly happens on-demand does not change the intent.  As
> long as there is no conceivable use without the (automatic and planned)
> assembly, the exact time frame of the assembly is not really relevant.

You keep talking about intent, but even if that mattered,
which it does not, US copyright law specifically declares
the copying needed to execute a program on a machine to be
non-infringing.

But there is no such thing as prohibiting the copying of a
work due to "future intent to create a collective work using
that work plus other copyrighted elements". If you would just
step back a moment from your ridiculous need to find GPL
violations where they cannot possibly exist, you would see
for yourself how nonsensical that sounds.

Copyright inheres to a specific work, that thing that you can
register with the copyright office if you choose. It is that
specific work which must contain copies of GPLed elements if
the viral nature of the GPL is to apply to the work as a whole.
Nothing else counts, no matter how that may bother you.

Further, you speak of "an executable stored in parts". But the
fundamental aspect that you erroneously choose to disregard is
that some of those parts, namely the GPL-copyrighted dynamic
libraries, are not being copied by the author of the program,
nor are they being distributed along with the program. Those
parts are separately present on the machine which will execute
the program, and any copying that occurs during the execution
is specifically declared non-infringing by US copyright law.

And further yet, directions on how to copy and instructions to
do so are not themselves copies subject to the copyright of the
work which is the target of the instructions. If I transmit the
text "Upon receipt, photocopy the full text of the Harry Potter
novels." that text does not fall under J.K. Rowling's copyright.
If the recipient chooses to obey the directions, it is he who
violates J.K. Rowling's copyright, not I.