[Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] Firmware signing

[James Bottomley]

On Wed, 2015-07-29 at 18:32 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Wed, 2015-07-29 at 09:38 -0700, James Bottomley wrote:
> > No, the paragraph is clear and has a well defined legal test: Unless you
> > can opine that the component you're aggregating is *also* based on the
> > work, the clause I quoted applies and the aggregation is allowed without
> > the component having to be under GPL.
> 
> OK, so your opinion is indeed *right* at the very end of the spectrum I
> described — you do actually believe that it directly contradicts all
> the previous verbiage which explicitly states that it *does* apply to
> combinations of GPL'd work with work that is "not derived from the
> Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate
> works in themselves."
> 
> > Really, no, the GPL is very carefully written to follow the tenets of
> > copyright law and specifically and deliberately never defines what
> > constitutes a derivative work because it relies on case law to do that.
> > This means the copyleft capture applies only to something which in legal
> > terms is a derivative of the work.  An aggregate may or may not be a
> > derivative work, but the mere act of aggregation does not create a
> > derivative (and there is definite case law on this), you have to apply
> > additional arguments to determine if an aggregate is also a derived
> > work. 
> 
> ... as well as contradicting its explicit statement that its intention
> is to "control the distribution of derivative OR COLLECTIVE WORKS".

That quote loses the last important piece; that paragraph, which I'll
quote in full

        Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or
        contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the
        intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of
        derivative or collective works based on the Program.

says that no additional rights over pieces that were written by another
(in this case a firmware provider) and are not based on the Program are
claimed.  That rather supports the idea that the extent of the license
attachment is limited to derivation.

> That's fine, I'm *still* not going to tell you that you're wrong. As I
> said, courts have made more bizarre decisions.
> 
> But there *is* scope for reasonable people to disagree with you. Let's
> not pretend otherwise.

Well, I'll agree that if you'd quoted the paragraph before the one you
did, we'd have to split hairs over what is "the work" and what is "the
program" so perhaps it would be better to stop here.

James

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