Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752031AbWCNI1F (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:27:05 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752028AbWCNI1F (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:27:05 -0500 Received: from bayc1-pasmtp05.bayc1.hotmail.com ([65.54.191.165]:51468 "EHLO BAYC1-PASMTP05.bayc1.hotmail.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752027AbWCNI1C (ORCPT ); Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:27:02 -0500 Message-ID: X-Originating-IP: [69.156.138.66] X-Originating-Email: [seanlkml@sympatico.ca] Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:24:47 -0500 From: sean To: davids@webmaster.com Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [future of drivers?] a proposal for binary drivers. Message-Id: <20060314032447.6be9af0a.seanlkml@sympatico.ca> In-Reply-To: References: <1142238041.3023.11.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.0.4 (GTK+ 2.8.14; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Mar 2006 08:27:02.0721 (UTC) FILETIME=[12021310:01C64741] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2050 Lines: 40 On Mon, 13 Mar 2006 13:57:40 -0800 "David Schwartz" wrote: > No, it does not. Copyright law only gives copyright owners the right to > control the *creation* of derivative works. I very carefully worded my > statement above so that it would talk about precisely the right people claim > they have and precisely the right they do not have. > > In this case, the alleged derivative work is created under first sale, as > part of normal use. It is impossible to normally use the 'kernel-devel' > package without creating derivative works, and under first sale, normal use > (and anything required for normal use) cannot be burdened. Once the > derivative work is lawfully created, there is nothing in copyright law that > requires the permission of the author of the original work to distribute the > derived work to licensees of the original work. > > The GPL gets around this by imposing requirements on the creation of > derivative works, under the assumption that you cannot get the right to > create a derivative work any other way. But this is false, first sale grants > the right to normal use, and normal use includes anything necessary for > normal use. For a library or for the 'kernel-devel' package, normal use > requires the creation of derivative works. > So i buy a book; clearly the reason it's written in english is so that I can extend and alter it. So I rip out the last chapter and replace it with one of my own. Now _clearly_ i can distribute this new work around the world without any fear of being sued by the copyright holders because it's fair use. NOT! Now before you try to argue that altering copyrighted source code is fair use but altering copyrighted books isn't; just stop. Please leave this matter to the lawyers and off this list. Sean - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/