No License Needed For Kubuntu Derivatives

[dee.]

Anyway, you are wrong that the output from compiling GPL source is not copyrightable - if Alice compiles GPL source into a binary, then that output belongs to her. The GPL is a *redistribution* license - it only applies if she chooses to redistribute the source or the compiled output. If she does not intend to redistribute, then the GPL does not apply, and she can do whatever she wants with the source or binaries - as long as she does not distribute them. If she does not distribute the compiled output but you take it and copy it anyway, then you are guilty of copyright infringement - you have infringed her copyright.

You're equivocating ownership with copyright here. If you compile GPL source to a binary, copyright does not transfer to you, the original copyright holders still hold the copyright to the software. You're allowed to modify the software for your own use without accepting the license, and without contributing the changes back. But that doesn't mean the software is under your copyright. Any conveying of the compiled binary (eg. making it available on a public repository) is considered distribution, and thus you're obligated to follow the terms of the GPL.

Did Canonical take away his freedom of speech? If he willingly signed a license and promised not to reveal the details, then that's his decision. But there was no law stopping him from revealing the details of what, exactly, he was being asked to license.

Irrelevant to the discussion.

Canonical's legal team should have made a public statement about ongoing legal negotiations with a specific third party, should they? That doesn't sound very professional, does it? Do you realise that Red Hat's Trademark policy actually states that they won't answer *any* questions that you have about licensing their trademarks (unless you have a business relationship with them)? "Red Hat will not respond to requests to review such matters... Red Hat does not advise others on the scope of its intellectual property rights." What you are expecting Canonical's legal team to do is something that other legal teams would not do.

You were the one claiming that that press release answered the question of the Mint license deal. I pointed out that it does not do so.

[chrisb]

You're equivocating ownership with copyright here. If you compile GPL source to a binary, copyright does not transfer to you, the original copyright holders still hold the copyright to the software.

I didn't say that the original author's copyright was transferred to you - what I said was that you are one of the copyright holders of a binary that you compile. If you compile GPL source to a binary, then that binary is a derivative work and it now has multiple copyright holders - the copyright holders of the original source, plus yourself.

Imagine that you wrote an amazing high level language compiler system, which analyses runtime behaviour, optimises and reorders sequences of code, and ultimately produces a low-level executable which is several times faster than any existing solution. You are now the sole copyright holder for this compiler system, and you intend to never release it. Since there is no license saying otherwise, you will, by default, also be a copyright holder of any binaries that are output by this amazing system. If you then take some existing GPL source from another copyright holder and compile it with your system, the output will be a derivative work, and you are one of the copyright holders of that derivative work. What happens when you compile a program is much the same as what happens when you input text into a translator, and the output is copyrightable in the same way - which is why compiler authors (usually) explicitly disclaim copyright on compiled output.