Re: ndiswrapper and GPL-only symbols redux

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Jan 30, 2008 at 07:54:35PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> The GPL might only talk about distribution.
> 
> But copyright law is not restricted to copying of work.
> 
> IANAL, and I don't know abou the laws in other countries, but at least 
> in Germany modifications of a copyrighted work require the permission of 
> the copyright holder.
> 
> It's e.g. a not so uncommon problem that someone wants to modify a 30 or 
> 80 years old building, and since the original contract with the 
> architect did not grant the owner of the building the rights to modify 
> it he needs to ask the architect (or the architect's heirs) who has the 
> (nontransferable) copyright on the building for the permission to modify 
> the building. [1]

Germany does seem to be an odd case that really makes it very difficult
to do perfectly reasonable, desirable and sane things.  I am not even
sure the GPL necesarily makes sense under German copyright law.  I am
not German so I haven't had to deal with it.

--
Len Sorensen
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