[Foundation-l] An argument for strong copyleft

Tue Apr 8 01:06:25 UTC 2008

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 8:49 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>  Being an "aggregation" under the GFDL does not preclude being a
>  "derivative work", so far as I can tell.  Do you disagree with this?

Yes, I do disagree with this. Here's the quote that I'm working off of:

"A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate
and independent documents or works ... is called an "aggregate" if the
copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the
legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual
works permit."

By this text, I make two conclusions:

1) The words "derivative" and "aggregate" are used separately. An
aggregate is able to contain a work and it's derivatives, but a
converse relationship does not appear to be true. Another quote is
useful here: "When the Document is included in an aggregate, this
License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are
not themselves derivative works of the Document".
2) A derivative is also under the GFDL. In section 4, the following
quote is used: "You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the
Document ... provided that you release the Modified Version under
precisely this License". A derivative must be released under the GFDL,
but the quote I mentioned first shows that an aggregate does not need
to be.

Aggregates and derivatives handled completely separately in the GFDL,
and are subject to different licensing conditions. An aggregate can
contain a derivative, but since it is not a GFDL document itself, it
cannot be a derivative. Notice that the precisely-defined meaning that
is given to the word "derivative" in the GFDL license does not
necessary correspond to what you or I would logically think of as a
"derivative".

--Andrew Whitworth