Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2005 16:36:48 -0400
From: Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>
To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org, debian-kernel@lists.debian.org,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.
Message-ID: <20050406163648.K32136@links.magenta.com>
References: <t1ufbC.A.C6H.38tUCB@murphy> <4252E050.20508@almg.gov.br>
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In-Reply-To: <4252E050.20508@almg.gov.br>; from humberto.massa@almg.gov.br on Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 04:00:32PM -0300
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> Josselin Mouette wrote:
> >It merely depends on the definition of "aggregation". I'd say that two
> >works that are only aggregated can be easily distinguished and
> >separated. This is not the case for a binary kernel module, from which
> >you cannot easily extract the firmware and code parts.

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 04:00:32PM -0300, Humberto Massa wrote:
> Not really... As a matter of fact, it's quite easy to separate those 
> parts, at least as easy as it is to separate one story inside a book 
> that contains an anthology of short stories. And the latter is not 
> considered a derivative work, either.

I'm not sure who it is that doesn't consider anthologies a
derivative work.  The u.s. copyright office considers anthologies
and other compilations derivative works except when they involve
insufficient creative work to grant them copyright protection.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf

But it's probably not interesting to argue any further about the inner
workings of copyright law.  Pretty much everyone seems to agree on what
the right approach is, here.  The big issue seems to be stability of
linux during the transition.

The interesting topics, at this point, have to do with the details of
migrating such drivers out of the kernel.

-- 
Raul
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