Re: module license taints kernel.

On Nov 15, 4:51 pm, Bob Tennent <B...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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.

I didn't mean the excerpt is wrong, I meant that to use the excerpt
the way you did is wrong. The GPL cannot set its own scope. Whether
the GPL's rules apply is a question of scope.

If the GPL said, "this license applies to every work every written by
anyone who has ever seen a work covered by this license", that
obviously would not mean that this was actually *true*.

Several parts of the GPL attempt to explain the scope of the GPL, but
they are not the final authority on the scope of the GPL. The GPL
cannot affect mere aggregates because of principles of copyright law.
If you buy a legal DVD copy of The Lion King, you don't need anyone's
permission to put it in the same box as a copy of The Phantom Menace.
It wouldn't matter what the licenses on the two DVDs said, that's mere
aggregation.

The GPL knows that it cannot "taint" a work just because it's
aggregated with a covered work and tries to explain what "aggregation"
means. It does an okay job.

Ask yourself, is a tar+gzip "mere aggregation"? Bits of one work are
removed and replaced with references to the other work.

DS
.

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