Re: Packages, release notes, etc

["Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>]

Joost Kremers <joost.m.kremers@gmail.com> writes:

> Tassilo Horn wrote:
>> But what's the purpose of the copyleft when I can release a derived work
>> basing on GPL code under a GPL-compatible license which has no copyleft
>> anymore, e.g., Apache License, Version 2.0?
>
> But what's a derived work? IANAL but according to Wikipedia a derivative
> wokr includes (a significant portion of) the original work. In that
> view, Emacs plugins, are not derivative works.
>
> IIUC the FSF argues that using a library in your program makes your
> program a derivative work of that library. (It's why there's also an
> LGPL.) In that view, something could be said for the argument that
> plugins are derivative works, even though Emacs is strictly speaking
> not a library.
>
> If you say that Emacs is essentially a virtual machine, then plugins
> written by third parties are not derivative works, I think. I mean,
> Oracles JVM is GPL, but I doubt that means that every program running on
> it must also be GPL. OTOH most Emacs plugins aren't just programs that
> happen to run on the Emacs VM, they're extensions modifying or extending
> the functionality of Emacs itself. (There are a few packages that I
> would consider actual programs running on top of Emacs, such as Gnus,
> mu4e, magit, etc. To me, those are intuitively different from a package
> such as e.g., markdown-mode or hydra, but the line is difficult to draw.
> I'm myself not sure on what side of the line I'd put org-mode, for
> example.)
>
> Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it's not at all clear what the
> legal status of Emacs packages is, and I'm pretty sure that if someone
> were to publish a proprietary Emacs extension and the FSF would sue,
> it'd be far from an open and shut case...

Indeed, and given that the legal analysis of the existing cases,
demonstrate that it all reduces to whether the judge considers to be in
presence of a derived work or not (nonwithstanding any technicalities
like linking, as I mentionned previously, a mere translation (in
literature) is considered derived work, I'm sure you could make the case
for source code too).

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                 http://www.informatimago.com/
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