Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On 27/08/2013 11:08, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>> Isn't it strange that those people seem to have less problems with closed 
>>> source than with a license that gives more freedom than the GPL? But 
>>> you are correct that the problem seem to be humans and not a license text.
>>
>> You are aware that the GPL was not really intended to be used together
>> with other licenses? It was really intended to create an entire
>> operating system, all of which was 100% licensed as GPL, all of which
>> comprise an original work written from scratch
> 
> But it has been proven that you cannot create a 100% GPL OS.
> More than 50% of all Linux distros are under different licenses...
> 
>> Stallman never makes this claim as bluntly as I've said it here, but
>> it's the only intelligent reading of his intent as far as I can make
>> out. This is why so many arguments arise over the GPL, the wording of
>> that license was not really intended to have it co-exist with other
>> licenses.
> 
> Stallman does not look at reality. The first GCC version in 1986 has been 
> published under something I call GPLv0 and this license did not permit a legal 
> use of the GCC in public.
> 
> The license was later converted to GPLv1 by using proposals I made but 
> Stallman still only talks about what has been in GPLv0.


I didn't bring this up to discuss fine points of licenses. I brought it
up for those who might want to understand what the GPL is intended to
do; that can only be truly understood by determining what Stallman
intended. The GPL is a reflection of Stallman's intent, and can only be
truly understood in that light.

Whether the legal wording accurately matches his intent is another
matter altogether. I personally feel it doesn't, won't and cannot, for
reasons of psychology and philosophy, not for reasons of technology or
law. What the GPL tries to do and how it does it is quite foreign to
most who practice law. Humans don't like foreign concepts. Heck, GPL-2
doesn't even remotely read like something that came off a lawyer's desk.


> 
>>> There is nothing non-void in the GPL that stops you from distributing binaries.
>>
>> That's a question of packaging and bundling, which is not covered by the
>> GPL. But kernel code and kernel modules are not mere bundles, they are
>> derivative works by virtue of how tightly they integrate with the
>> kernel, and how the code can only ever run unchanged on Linux.
> 
> If a kernel uses ZFS, you have to decide on whether the kernel is a derivative 
> work of ZFS or whether just a collective work exists.
> 
> _Using_ ZFS definitely does not make ZFS a derivative work.

I never said it did. I was concentrating on those parts of ZFS that
interact with kernel internals - that might not be been entirely clear

You are making a spurious claim by saying "you have to decide on whether
the kernel is a derivative work of ZFS or ..."

In what possible way could the entire Linux kernel be considered a
derivative work of ZFS? That doesn't make any sense.



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com