On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 02:00:34PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > When I take, say, /bin/ls, and run it under fakeroot (and thus link it > with libfakeroot.so.0, aiui), I'm not (afaik) causing the resulting modified > file (that's only ever in memory) to carry prominent notice that I changed > the files, and I've no idea if the date of the change is stored anywhere. > > Does that mean my running ls under fakeroot is a violation of the > GPL? After all, both fakeroot and ls are under the GPL.
That class of issue started bothering me earlier this evening, and I sent off a question to RMS about it. I think I know the answer (17 USC 117) for the U.S. context, but I'd like to know the general answer. > If not, then presumably I've done exactly the same things to satisfy > 2(a) when I run some non-free program with a GPLed library, or > vice-versa. These are not necessarily exactly the same. > 2(b) doesn't apply since I'm not distributing, and 2(c) almost > certainly doesn't apply since I'm not making a non-interactive program > interactive. Someone distributed ls and fakeroot. > Personally, I'd've thought making the necessary copies in RAM to run the > program would come under the general permissions for "the act of running > the Program". I'm pretty sure there are explicit provisions to allow that > in .au copyright law, fwiw. In the U.S. it's 17 USC 117 that grants special permissions in the context of computer programs.
