Re: ndiswrapper and GPL-only symbols redux

Lennart Sorensen
2008-01-30T18:15:39Z

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