Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:15:30 -0500
To: Adrian Bunk <bunk@kernel.org>
Cc: Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
       Jon Masters <jonathan@jonmasters.org>,
       Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>,
       Giridhar Pemmasani <pgiri@yahoo.com>, rms@gnu.org
Subject: Re: ndiswrapper and GPL-only symbols redux
Message-ID: <20080130181530.GA26259@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
References: <1201641765.18773.35.camel@dv> <20080129225701.GS8767@does.not.exist> <1201650267.18773.118.camel@dv> <20080130002514.GA1802@does.not.exist> <1201658555.24898.27.camel@dv> <20080130175435.GA29368@does.not.exist>
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From: lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Lennart Sorensen)
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On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:54:35PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> The GPL might only talk about distribution.
> 
> But copyright law is not restricted to copying of work.
> 
> IANAL, and I don't know abou the laws in other countries, but at least 
> in Germany modifications of a copyrighted work require the permission of 
> the copyright holder.
> 
> It's e.g. a not so uncommon problem that someone wants to modify a 30 or 
> 80 years old building, and since the original contract with the 
> architect did not grant the owner of the building the rights to modify 
> it he needs to ask the architect (or the architect's heirs) who has the 
> (nontransferable) copyright on the building for the permission to modify 
> the building. [1]

Germany does seem to be an odd case that really makes it very difficult
to do perfectly reasonable, desirable and sane things.  I am not even
sure the GPL necesarily makes sense under German copyright law.  I am
not German so I haven't had to deal with it.

--
Len Sorensen
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