Re: [fuse-devel] copyright question

[Karl M. <km...@gm...>]

>
> Distributing GPL (kernel code and examples) and LGPL (library) code in
> a single package is probably slightly against the rules, but until
> someone complains I'm not going to change it.
>
> Miklos
>

Miklos (and everyone),  I think only people whose code you have
incorporated have any basis for a legal complaint.

The GPL is a license granted by the owner of the work (Miklos and any
llvm contributors, in this case) to others.  I'm not aware of any restricti=
ons
placed by on the granter of the license under the GPL.

I'm not a lawyer,  but it's my understanding of US law that if it's 100% yo=
ur
code with no overlapping claims of ownership (for instance, due to
incorporating GPL'd code created by others), then you can do whatever
the fsck you want with it, even if you are granting Gnu Public Licenses to
everyone downloading the code from your site. Only you could legally
enforce the terms of the GPL against yourself.  (The owner of the code
still maintains ownership, which is why Trolltech can dual-license Qt.)

The LGPL'd portions of the code are not at issue, as you explicitly have
license to distribute modified or modified copies of that code in source
form along with code licensed under arbitrary licenses.

However, anyone re-distributing your code (including mirror sites),
binaries, or derivative works could be legally forced by you (Miklos) to
separate your GPL'd code from non-GPL'd code.

Of course, anyone that created GPL'd patches that have been incorporated
in llvm could legally force you to separate the code if they wanted (unless
they signed copyright ownership over to you, or implicitly gave you copyrig=
ht
by creating the code in the course of being employed by you).

Then there's international copyright law... and I haven't checked if copyri=
ght
for llvm has been assigned to the FSF or another body...

Once again, this is only my understanding and does not constitute legal adv=
ice.
I am not a lawyer.


-Karl