Re: OT: GNU Public License vs. Copyright

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Tuesday, April 16, 2002 at 12:19:12 (+0200), Giovanni Zezza wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Jeff's new programming language
>
> Il Mon, 08 Apr 2002 08:37:57 +1000, Jeff Kingston scriveva:
> 
> >  > When will you publish the language?  (GPL? (Maintainer J.K.))
> >
> >When it's implemented.  It will be GPL licenced as usual.
> 
> This aroses a usual problem of mine about GPL licence: what exactly is
> supposed to be "a work based on the Program"?
> 
> A program that generates Lout (or Nonpareil) code (for example, from a
> database), and then launches Lout on it to get a report, has to be
> considered "a work based on Lout"? I have to distribute it under GPL too?
> To me it seems it shouldn't be so (otherwise I think I had to release
> myself under GPL, for I write Lout code too), but I'm really confused about
> this.

I'm not sure what the laws governing copyright are exactly in Italy,
though I suspect they're similar to copyright laws of most "Western"
countries which are all signatories of verious conventions regarding
copyright.

IANAL, but I have studied Canadian copyright laws (and other
intellectual property laws and contract law) quite extensively, and I'm
generally familiar with the basics of the legal process as it works in
Canada.

In Canada at least the GPL is a Copyright License.  This means that it
can only protect a work with regard to copying, distribution of copies,
and certain moral rights, as granted by the Copyright Act.

Under Canadian copyright law a "work", when pertaining to software is
the source code to a program (or collection of programs and
documentation and so on).  Software, in Canada at least, is treated as a
literary work (which means all the stuff about broadcast, performance,
and so on, do not apply).

In copyright law the phrase "a work based on" almost certainly refers to
a derivative work.  I.e. some new work that is directly taken from the
protected work.  In other words a program that works in conjunction with
lout is not a work based on lout.  Only if you were to package such a
program in with a copy of lout as a separately protected collective work
would you be required to honour the terms of the GPL w.r.t. the
copyright of your collective package.  So long as you separately package
and distribute your lout-using program you do not have to worry about
meeting the terms of the GPL -- at least not in Canada, and at least not
yet.  :-)

-- 
                                                                Greg A. Woods

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