On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 12:40:45PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > What if Debian, White Knight of Free Software, distributes A (a GPLed > library) and obeys the GPL completely, and doesn't distribute anything > non-GPLed which links to it at all; but FooCorp, Evil Geniuses that they > are, makes an apt source and distributes B .debs which can happily link > to A as distributed by Debian [0].
linking creates a derivative work. creation of a derivative work is regulated by copyright. in this case, you're describing the creation of a derivative work which violates the license on the original work. > In particular, you'll note that in this scenario FooCorp doesn't > distribute *any* GPL'ed code themselves, and in the alternate > scenarios they don't even need to have the GPL'ed code on their > systems at all. They're distributing a work derived from GPL'd code. [They're supposedly granting users the right to use such a work.] -- Raul
