Re: module license taints kernel.

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:37:28 -0800 (PST), David Schwartz wrote:
On Nov 15, 9:21 am, Bob Tennent <B...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The tainted kernel incorporating the module is surely not an aggregate:

Yes, it is.

A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent
works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and
which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or
on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an
"aggregate" ...

I'm not sure where you got that from, but it's wrong.

It's a definition taken from the GPL. By "wrong" I presume you mean
that it differs from what is conventional in copyright law. I don't
think it's improper to re-define a conventional term for some specific
purpose. The GPL grants rights that are otherwise denied by copyright
law. By my reading of the GPL, a tainted kernel is not a GPL-defined
aggregate and hence the "mere aggregate" provision of the GPL allowing
distribution doesn't apply. The issue isn't whether the tainted kernel
might be a derivative work under copyright law, but whether distribution
is allowed by the GPL.

Bob T.

An "aggregate"
is any combination made by automated means, as opposed to creative
means, with a few narrow exceptions specified by copyright law. (Such
as translation, since it was probably assumed at the time the law was
made that translation had to be creative.)

So compilers, linkers, and archivers make aggregates of their input
works. Human beings who combine things creatively can make new works
that are not merely aggregates of the input.

If you feed a bunch of input works into anything that cannot add
creative input, it cannot create a new work. All it can do is
aggregate the inputs. Under copyright law, it takes creative input to
create a new work, even a new derivative work.

DS
.

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