(e-mail address removed) (Malcolm Dew-Jones) writes:
]Bill Unruh (
[email protected]) wrote:
]: ]In <
[email protected]>, on 10/15/2004
]: ] at 09:06 AM, (e-mail address removed) (Steve Schefter) said:
]: ]> Linus opinion on this is irrelevant. Neither I nor the FSF nor
]: ]> many others have released code under anything but the vanilla GPL.
]: ]> By merging such code Linus lost his ability to vary the license.
]: ]What do you mean by "such code"? What code is Linus distributing under
]: ]the kernel GPL that he does not have the right to so distribute? Don't
]: ]confuse Linux with a Linux distribution.
]: The code written by all of the people who contribute to the kernel.
]: Very little is actually written by Linus.
]: He has the right to distribute it because it is licensed to him under the
]: GPL. That means he has to abide by the conditions of the GPL just as anyone
]: else must
]May yes, maybe no.
]You might think that when he distributes code in the kernel that he did
]not himself write, then yes, he would need to abide by the gpl, whereas
]for those things which he wrote himself, no, he could take them out of the
]current kernel and use them anyway he wants.
]However the gpl really controls how those _contributors_ could distribute
]linus's work after they modify it, not how the original author can
]distribute the work after incorporating code that has been sent to him in
]the hopes he finds it useful.
]Many people who contributed did not do anything that could be considered a
]"distribution" when they provided it, instead they "contributed" the code
?? what has "distribution" got to do with anything. They allowed Linus and
others to copy it. That is as far as their right goes. They can control
copying.
]directly to him, effectively making a donation, not a distribution - and
]so for those sections of code, linux may very well be able to change the
]license more than the contributors may realize. More importantly, many
No. Noone makes donations. Read the code.
]contributions are modifications to code that linus originally wrote, and
]copyright law is pretty clear that the original author would normally own
]those modifications no matter who made them. For examples outside of
No. Utterly false. Such a work is a derived work and copyright resides in BOTH
the original author and the person who changes it. It cannot be copied
except under conditions that BOTH agree to.
]source code, consider if you rearrange and expand on someone elses short
]story then the original author can claim copyright infringement - i.e.
]they own the copyright on the new work because it is based on their work,
]even though they didn't write most of it (there are lawsuits all the time
]over film scripts that fall into this kind of category), or in music, if
]you make an arrangement of a song then the original author explicitly owns
]the copyright in the arrangement (even though they didn't write it).
No he does not. He owns the copyright to the original work. He also jointly
with the arranger owns the copyright in the arrangement. Both have
copright and you need permission from both to copy.
]Code is not inherently different, Linus likely does own the copyright in
]much of the code that has been contributed, and can therefore distribute
]it any way he chooses.
Uh, perhaps you should read the kernel source code sometime. Almost all has
an explicit statement that the code is released under the GPL. It is NOT
"donated to Linus" nor is the copyright transfered to him.
Let me take a random bit of code (this is the first file in the kernel tree
I opened)
/*
* linux/drivers/ide/ide-dma.c Version 4.10 June 9, 2000
*
* Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Andre Hedrick <
[email protected]>
* May be copied or modified under the terms of the GNU General Public
* License
*/
Note that Andre Hedrick retains the copyright, and allows others to use it
under the GPL.