Re: Open/Closed
Well, I'm not a lawyer (or I'd be skiing right now), but the whole "derivative work" argument around the GPL has always seemed to me to be tenuous.
Suppose I put together a library with some utility functions in it and make it available under the GPL. The GPL philosophy is that if I then write some software that makes use of those utility functions, then my software is automatically covered by the GPL - hence the existence of the LGPL without which most people probably wouldn't touch the library of utility functions with a bargepole.
However, suppose I write some application that requires a library with the same API as the GPL library of utility functions, but I don't bundle a copy of the GPL library and simply leave it to the user to supply a library of equivalent functions or write their own. Does my application get co-opted into the GPL in retrospect if and end-user chooses to link it with a GPL library? I doubt it, though since the Oracle v Google trial, I guess I could be done for infringing on the copyright in the API.
In the same way, I don't really believe that Linux drivers are a "derived work" any more than Windows drivers are - they're just bits of code making use of an API. I know that Linux has gone out of its way to avoid an API for binary drivers to encourage source availability, but there's no difference in principle between linking source code and binary code: they're both expressions of the same intellectual concept.
It seems like we're approaching a point at which this is going to have to be tested in court because uncertainty about the outcome of licence wars can only have a chilling effect on open software development.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
