Re: [tlug] JFS file system license

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Nguyen Vu Hung writes:

 > The difference between a filesystem and and program( for example X.org)
 > is that: The file system sits on the bottom of the OS.
 > Therefore unless we use memory based filesystem( like tmpfs),

What makes you think memory has a special exemption from copyright
law?  It doesn't.  The only exemption related to memory is that since
programs are sold on the basis that it's useful to run them, you are
automatically allowed to make as many copies as needed to run the
program.  This includes disk copies (swap me harder!!), as well.
(However, that's copyright law.  A EULA == contract may modify such
rights, but it would have to work pretty hard.)

 > we have to place our files on the filesystem, i.e, actually use it.

Copyright doesn't care about use.  Copyright does not allow authors to
prevent you from using their books as doorstops, burning them for
heat, or eating them, or reading them.  (Author's rights may apply,
but only if you do these things in public for the purpose of defaming
the author. :-)  Copyright only allows the author to prevent you from
copying.

 > And what happens if my Hello World program calls fopen()?

First, fopen() is part of libc, in a GNU system that's GNU libc.  GNU
libc is under the LGPL, so linkage to it can't matter ever.

For a GPLed library, RMS (and his legal beagle) claim that the
"derived work" described in copyright law includes everything in the
same process.  Larry Rosen seems to believe otherwise (and therefore
the GPL == LGPL, pretty much, the remaining issue being whether a user
has the right to copy a GPLed work, ie, from disk into the same
process memory space as a non-GPL work---the "GPL doesn't cover
running the program" phrasing would seem to say not but this is
tricky).

Second, the fopen() API is standardized.  There are multiple
implementations, so as long as you don't distribute a 3rd party GPLed
libc as part of your Hello World program, you're OK.  The judge will
say the the derived work ends at the public API, because use of an API
does not involve expressive creativity (the Obfuscated C contest
suggests otherwise, but I digress...).  GPL libc might cause potential
users of your program a problem (as described above), but you're off
the hook.

If GNU libc were GPL, and your Hello World program called gconv()
(AFAIK a non-standard GNU extension), *then* you'd be liable for
copyright infringement (according to RMS, but not so according to
Rosen).

 > And the license of the kernel is GPL too.

The kernel has a special exemption for its exported APIs.  AFAIK this
isn't written anywhere in the kernel documentation only on lkml, but
that's what allows binary modules to be distributed: even though they
live in kernel space, they aren't "derived from" the kernel.

Any POSIX API will have the "standard API" exemption, as well.

 > > BTW, please refrain from posting in HTML.

 > Gmail supports smileys in HTML emails and I found that
 > it is very convinient to express my "sorry" emotions in fancy HTML :)

But does it count if nobody else knows that you're sorry?

*sigh*-is-it-time-for-yet-another-licensing-talk-ly y'rs,