Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[Les Mikesell]

David Woodhouse wrote:
> 
>>>> Do do have an exact definition of what is not permitted? 
>>> I pasted a precise definition of 'collective work' already, didn't I?
>> That is unrelated to the question.
> 
> No, it is the answer to your question. You asked what is not permitted.

And you are ignoring the explicit permission for aggregation.

> What's not permitted is distribution of a collective work including the
> GPL'd Program, where the other independent and separate parts of that
> work are not also available under the terms of the GPL.

Except when the separate parts are identifiable and not derived.

>>> The very definition of 'collective work' is that it is an aggregation of
>>> other independent and separate works.
>> And aggregations are explicitly permitted which makes that discussion 
>> irrelevant.
> 
> Oh dear, you're back to that again. I thought we'd dealt with that, but
> we seem to be going round in circles. I'll try again, one last time:
> 
> All collective work is aggregation.

But only certain ones are permitted.

> The GPL explicitly states that it covers collective work.

With a specific exception for aggregations.

> The GPL explicitly talks about extending the permissions of the GPL to
> works which are independent and separate works in themselves, when those
> works are included in a collective work.
> 
> Thus, it is not credible to believe that the 'mere aggregation on a
> volume of a storage or distribution medium' exception is intended to
> cover _all_ aggregation. That would mean that the GPL is just setting up
> all these conditions, only to immediately turn round and say "oh,
> actually I didn't really mean it" in the next paragraph.

No, it is not credible to believe that they explicitly say that 
aggregating separate works together is permitted but they don't actually 
permit it. And it's particularly not credible to believe that the 
copyright holders believe the inclusion of these parts are a copyright 
violation for fairly obvious reasons.

> If you're willing to make that claim in public then I don't really know
> why I'm bothering to talk to you. Do you have no shame?

No, I just can't ignore what the COPYING file actually says.

>>> As you know, the GPL makes an exception for 'mere aggregation on a
>>> volume of a storage or distribution medium'. There is some scope for
>>> debate on precisely what is covered by that exception, but not a huge
>>> amount.
>> So the relevant discussion should be about whether there is a person 
>> that can identify the separate parts.
> 
> No, that's another complete non-sequitur from you. Where on earth did
> _that_ idea come from? 

You apparently didn't read the distinguishing factor:
"If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program ..."

> If you can identify the separate short stories in an anthology, do you
> think that somehow means that it isn't a collective work?

"Collective work" is not a relevant issue. The question is whether or 
not it is a permitted aggregation, and the way to determine this is 
spelled out fairly clearly.  I wouldn't expect everyone to be experts on 
  both kernel code and firmware, so the first step is to find some who 
can identify the sections (like maybe the person who put them there...) 
and make a determination if they were "derived from the Program".  We 
already know they are separate, since they get dumped into separate 
hardware.

> Actually, don't bother to answer that. Because I'm sure you'll just come
> back with another complete non-sequitur rather than a real answer.

Quoting the text of the GPL is not a non-sequitur and should hardly be 
necessary at this point in the conversation.

> Let's just give up, eh?

Unless you want to talk about the actual GPL instead of ignoring part of 
it.  There is room for interpretation about determining separate 
sections that are independent works, but so far you haven't addressed 
that and it is the only relevant question.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com