RedHat SRPMS

[Federico Sacerdoti]

On Friday, October 3, 2003, at 01:33 PM, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:

> Red Hat, EL or Linux, bring source code under GPL or BSD or Xfree or 
> others OSI licenses.
> But binary code, ISO images, Red Hat logos, and the *Red Hat(TM)* do 
> not are under
> those licenses, instead -> 
> http://www.redhat.com/licenses/rhel_us_2-1.html?country=United+States&
>

Binary code is a "translation" of source. The compiler acts as a 
translator between high and low level languages: C or similar on one 
side, and the machine instruction set on the other. By article 0 of the 
GPL, this translation equates to a modification of the work and is 
covered by the GPL license.

I do not know if this fact has any precedence in court, but 
translations of works have been covered under copyright law for 
centuries.

I do not see how binary code can jump to a different copyright 
structure if it was made from GPL source.

Federico

Rocks Cluster Group, San Diego Supercomputing Center, CA