Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>

>> However, then you cannot legally copy it at all, because it contains
>> part of the original author's copyrighted work and therefore can only
>> legally be copied with the permission of the author.

> 	The way you stop someone from distributing part of your work
> is by arguing that the work they are distributing is a derivative
> work of your work and they had no right to *make* it in the first
> place. See, for example, Mulcahy v. Cheetah Learning.

You don't need to argue that the thing being distributed is a
derivative work. It is enough that it _contains_ your copyrighted
work.

> 	My point is that the reason the derivative work issue is so
> important is because it's the only way (in U.S. law anyway) that the
> GPL can apply to anything other than the exact thing the author
> chose to apply it to.

The taske of the GPL is to _give permission_ when certain conditions
hold. Therefore, if the GPL does not apply yet you still need
permission from the author (beacuse what you're distributing contains
his work), then you do not have that permission and cannot distribute
_at all_.

I'm not sure whether meant instead that the original _copyright_ only
influences things that are derivative works, but that would have even
more bizarre consequences.

> The GPL applies to distributing a Linux binary I just made even
> though nobody ever chose to apply the GPL to the binary I just made
> only because the binary I just made is a derivative work of the
> Linux kernel, and the authors of that work chose to apply the GPL to
> it.

How can the binary be a derivative work when it does *not* contain
firmware, but suddenly cease to be a derivative work if one *does*
add firmware into it?

-- 
Henning Makholm            "Vi skal nok ikke begynde at undervise hinanden i
                    den store regnekunst her, men jeg vil foreslå, at vi fra
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          give en beskrivelse af, hvordan man læser tallene. Tak for i dag!"