Re: GPL 2(b) HUH?

[Barry Margolin]

In article <GJNAk.10074$o72.294@fe111.usenetserver.com>,
 Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote:

> Barry Margolin wrote:
> > It's not the scheduler that's a derivative, it's the new Linux kernel 
> > that results from replacing the scheduler in the old kernel.  I.e.
> > 
> > Linux - schedulerA + schedulerB => derivative of Linux.
> 
> But the new scheduler itself is not entangled with the copyright
> of Linux. And the combined work of Linux + new scheduler is a
> derivative of Linux only if the changes to use the new scheduler
> involved enough modifications to Linux to consider them a significant
> work of authorship.

In my opinion, the scheduler is an integral part of Linux, just as 
Chapter 1 is an integral part of a Harry Potter book.  An operating 
system is NOT an anthology.

Application programs, on the other hand, are independent.  The 
collection of all the applications included in a Linux distribution 
would be a collective work, analogous to an anthology.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
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