Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] Firmware signing

[David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>]

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On Wed, 2015-07-29 at 09:38 -0700, James Bottomley wrote:
> No, the paragraph is clear and has a well defined legal test: Unless you
> can opine that the component you're aggregating is *also* based on the
> work, the clause I quoted applies and the aggregation is allowed without
> the component having to be under GPL.

OK, so your opinion is indeed *right* at the very end of the spectrum I
described — you do actually believe that it directly contradicts all
the previous verbiage which explicitly states that it *does* apply to
combinations of GPL'd work with work that is "not derived from the
Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate
works in themselves."

> Really, no, the GPL is very carefully written to follow the tenets of
> copyright law and specifically and deliberately never defines what
> constitutes a derivative work because it relies on case law to do that.
> This means the copyleft capture applies only to something which in legal
> terms is a derivative of the work.  An aggregate may or may not be a
> derivative work, but the mere act of aggregation does not create a
> derivative (and there is definite case law on this), you have to apply
> additional arguments to determine if an aggregate is also a derived
> work. 

... as well as contradicting its explicit statement that its intention
is to "control the distribution of derivative OR COLLECTIVE WORKS".

That's fine, I'm *still* not going to tell you that you're wrong. As I
said, courts have made more bizarre decisions.

But there *is* scope for reasonable people to disagree with you. Let's
not pretend otherwise.

-- 
dwmw2

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