Re: Corel's apt frontend
Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:
> I'll still take the stance that because this hasn't gone to court
> that we don't know what the courts will decide.
If the courts agree with your reasoning I think we'll be in big
trouble. As far as I can see it would imply:
1) Linus' exception for system calls is important: it is the only
thing that prevents any Linux binary from being a deriviate of
the kernel.
2) Hence, Linux's distribution terms GPL+exception are effectively
different from GPL alone.
3) GCC and the kernel taken togeter is, by your definition, a
"program" for compiling C programs. Therefore GCC+Linux is
a deriviate of GCC.
4) Hence, by the distribution terms for GCC, Debian must distribute
the GCC+Linux combo under straight GPL, which, by (2) is not
what is done presently.
5) Which means that Debian cannot simultaneously distribute GCC and
the Linux kernel, unless we drop Linus' exception (which I think
is legally possible but I'm not totally sure).
6) Which makes the aggregation of *any* binary in Debian and the
kernel a "program" to which GPL 2b can be applied.
7) Which means that Debian cannot distribute *any* binary that is
not GPL.
8) Which, happily, means that we don't have to discuss whether
anything meets the DFSG - the only relevant question become:
are the distribution terms the GPL?
9) Repeat steps (1) through (7) for any Linux distribution which
includes any GNU software at all. We might have to learn to
love BSD...
.. but of course, only if Raul's reasoning turns out to be valid in
court. *And* if RMS does not release version 3 of the GPL clarifying
the aggregation exception quite soon after the court has sponen. In
which case the "or (at your option) any later version" in the
copyright for dpkg is going to apply.
--
Henning Makholm "This imposes the restriction on any
procedure statement that the kind and type
of each actual parameter be compatible with the
kind and type of the corresponding formal parameter."
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