OT: GPL Question

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2005-06-15 at 01:49, Andy Green wrote:

> This is true, the copyright holder can dual-license how he likes.  Is it
> true that this guy needs any more licensing than GPL in this case?  Not
> AIUI.

The question is: can the combined result be considered a 'derivative
work' under copyright law.  If the program won't function without the
icons, perhaps it would.  If alternatively-licensed icons exist and
the user can choose which to use, I would not expect any restrictions
to apply - but I'm not a lawyer.

> Same goes for if you insert a
> proprietary kernel module into Linux - the GPL does not leak through the
> module API and into your sources, which can remain private if you choose.

Don't count on that. See:
 http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/3/228
and realize that there are good reasons that so few vendors that can't
release source bother with a Linux module.  It will be interesting to
see how this works out with OpenSolaris.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com