Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[Les Mikesell]

Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> 
>>>> With any other license, I could at least have done a diff against
>>>> the original copies and my work and given that away
> 
> Nope. The diff is very clearly a work derived from the original (you just
> can't cook up a difference to the original without the original;

Perhaps, but it is not at all clear whether copyright restricts you from 
distributing such changes because there is an obvious conflict with your 
rights to use your copy in the ways you want.  How would you relate what 
you are saying to the recent ruling in the UK that selling modified ROMS 
to someone who already has the original does not violate copyright law?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080612/0055131385.shtml  That's not 
entirely universal and in the US the DMCA would make it illegal to break 
encryption for the purpose of circumventing copy protection whether or 
not the actual copying was legal - but it seems like the right approach 
to me.

>> I'm not sure what you are talking about. It's a pretty safe bet that
>> there is more code that relies on Microsoft libraries than anything
>> else
> 
> So? It /uses/ the libraries in the way the relevant license spells out, and
> you can the distribute what you build on them as said license allows. It
> isn't taking pieces of said libraries and distributing modified versions of
> them at all.

Again, this is not at all clear.

>>                                 The FSF says otherwise and that if the
>> resulting 'work as a whole' would be be a derived work, then the
>> components, including my own work, can't be distributed unless all are
>> restricted by the GPL.
> 
> Your own work, if it depends intimately on the original, is clearly a
> derived work. And you need the owner's permission to create it in the first
> place. 

No, I need the owner's permission to have my copy in the first place.  I 
don't need his permission to use it or add my own changes to it.

> If said owner grants that permission only under the condition that
> your modifications have to be distributed under GPL...

Once I have my copy, said owner has no more to say about what I can do 
with it.  Copyright prevents subsequent redistribution without 
permission but it is not anyone else's business if I redistribute the 
work that I've added to my copy to someone else who also has a copy of 
the original work.

> ... because you were granted the right of having a copy by the owner of the
> relevant rights, which you got under certain conditions.

There are no conditions to receiving a copy a copy under the GPL.  And 
if there were, they would have to comply with the rights you have to use 
the copy you've gotten.

> Using a library is one thing, taking its code and modifying it something
> quite different; and distributing a copy of the original or a modified
> version are yet again completely different. For each of those activities
> you need separate permissions.

Sometimes.  Some of those things are basic rights, recognized 
differently in different places.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com