Re: module license taints kernel.

On Nov 19, 11:50 am, Rainer Weikusat <rweiku...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So you rescind your claim that linkers create derivative works?

If have never claimed that linkers create derivative works.

Okay, then maybe I don't know what we're arguing about.

You have a new claim -- that a work fed into a linker might be a
derivative work of some other work. Well, duh, of course it might.

No. I still have the original claim, namely, that what is fed into the
linker constitutes 'a work'.

What is fed into the linker is more than one work. You can certainly
call it a "work" if you like because collections of works are often
themselves works. What do you think this buys you?

That's why it is different from what I had been writing about, namely,
files intended to be linked together using an interface specific to
one of them, eg Linux kernel modules.

Why do you think this matters?

Yes, if you did so by a creative process.

In other words: If I combined [...] to create something which has a
function of its own.

No. Function is completely irrelevant. Really.

The question is whether the combination process is creatively
selective or creatively adds new content. It has nothing to do with
function, and the rules apply in exactly the same way to non-
functional works as they do to functional ones.

This means that I would have added something
which depends properties specific to both of the other parts and adds
something to them which did not exist before I created it. And then, I
would have made a derivative work of the other two parts.

Yes, provided this process is creatively selective. The problem is
that linkers are not creatively selective.

If I know
'cleverly' distribute only the part I created and add some
instructions like 'download this file from there and this other file
from here and combine them in such-and-such a way', this would still
be a derivative work, because my creation has been designed as such.

No, sorry. It would not.

"A 'derivative work' is a work based upon one or more preexisting
works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization,
fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art
reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a
work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of
editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications
which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a
'derivative work'."

The key is that it, as a whole, represents an original work of
authorship in which a work is recast, transformed or adapted. Notice
that it requires things like "revisions", "annotations" and
"elaborations". These are *creative* extensions of a *creative* work.
It is *only* creativity that creates an "original work of authorship".

Copyrights do not vest based on hard work, functionality, or anything
else *but* creative expression.

Until you combine your own creative expression with the creative
expression of the original work, it's still just the original work.

If you take two DVDs and combine them in a non-creative way, you still
just have the two DVDs. If you combine them in a creative way, you
have a new work. The key is that the creative expression in the
original works is revised, annotated, or elaborated in by a human
brain adding expression to those original expressions.

Note that the fact that you extend the *functionality* of the work
doesn't matter. Functionality is really and truly irrelevant. In fact,
functionality counts against copyright. If you take only what you need
for functional purposes, copyright does *NOT* apply.

DS
.

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