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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: New ways to evade copyright law (was Re: Vicarious liblity (was: KDE not in Debian?))
From:       Raul Miller <moth () debian ! org>
Date:       2000-02-07 15:29:18
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On Fri, Feb 04, 2000 at 10:29:13PM +0100, Marc van Leeuwen wrote:

> Raul Miller wrote:
> > On Fri, Feb 04, 2000 at 01:30:50PM -0500, Brian Ristuccia wrote:
> > > Distributing two separate works for which you have authorization, on
> > > the other hand, is perfectly ok even if you don't have permission
> > > to distribute the combination of the two. Any combination of those
> > > works would be done by the end user. Only if the end user chooses to
> > > distribute the result would they (not you) be in violation of the
> > > copyright.
> > 
> > But the only reason you have permission to distribute a GPLed executable
> > is if you're distributing the source under appropriate terms (terms that
> > let you modify and redistribute that source code with no restrictions
> > beyond those imposed by the GPL).  And that includes the source for any
> > needed modules.
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> No, as I recently observed in another post, that is not what the GPL says. It
> says: "all the source code for all modules [the executabe work being
> distributed] contains". To contain is something different from to need. While
> statically and dynamically linked executables eventually will need the same
> set of modules, they don't contain the same set.

Contain: to have as a component.

I suppose we could digress into a discussion of topology as it relates
to program requirements, but for the moment I'll just remind you that:
the program won't run without Qt.

Perhaps you'll say that all that means is that kghostscript isn't
executable code, and therefore section 3 of the GPL doesn't even apply
to it.  But if that's what you're trying to say, I have to ask: what
gives anyone permission to distribute kghostscript?

-- 
Raul

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