Re: Recommendation for a CL data structures library

[David Kastrup]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> On 3/25/2010 2:21 PM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Hyman Rosen<hyrosen@mail.com>  writes:
>>
>>> On 3/25/2010 1:49 PM, Hyman Rosen wrote:
>>>> it cannot possibly be correct under copyright law for the
>>>> rights to a work to change by the creation of a separate
>>>> work after the original work has been created!
>>>
>>> Well, actually, let me take this part back.
>>
>> What changes is not the rights to the copyrightable work (those remain
>> with the author), but whether it legally constitutes an integral part of
>> a larger whole or not.  When it can be usefully combined with different
>> other parts, this is definitely not the case.
>
> No, that's not it at all. I was wrong because the author
> of a license can put in any conditions he wants,

The whole point of the GPL as a license rather than a contract is
extending the rights a user will normally have, so that agreement to the
license can be assumed without prejudicing the software user.

So the GPL takes care not to go further than copyright does.

> But permission to copy and distribute a library cannot
> affect the right to copy and distribute a separate work
> when that work does not contain the library.

The courts ultimately determine the meaning of "separate" and "contain".

-- 
David Kastrup