On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 04:13:22PM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> Andrew Pimlott <andrew@pimlott.ne.mediaone.net>:
> > On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 03:17:16PM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> > > IANAL, but I believe that Linus's position as anthology copyright holder
> > > makes him privileged in this respect.
> >
> > Regardless of what you find in the books, recall that Linus has
> > stated that decentralizing the copyright of Linux was a goal, so you
> > may not find him willing to claim an "anthology copyright" (if such
> > a thing even applies to the kernel, which in my NAL opinion, it does
> > not).
>
> Linus *is*, however, implicitly claiming the authority to make license
> policy on behalf of the other copyright holders in cases where the GPL
> is unclear.
>
> In COPYING, Linus says that that the version of GPL applying to the
> kernel is v2 unless explicitly otherwise stated. He has also already
> issued the interpretation that normal system calls from userland do
> not create a derivation relationship.
>
> I consider Linus to have the moral right to make these decisions, whether
> or not the law gives him a formal legal right to do so. All I have done
> is propose that he be more explicit about his policy in order to prevent
> needless confusion and nervousness.
I agree entirely that Linus, as creator of the license, is
privileged with respect to interpretation of the license. I
disagree however with your suggestion that he is privileged with
respect to the copyright (eg the ability to sue or relicense),
especially since his own words (cited earlier) read like a
disclaimer of such privilege.
I basically support your position.
Andrew
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jun 23 2001 - 21:00:35 EST