Re: Copyright / licensing question

[Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@hist.no>]

Charles Cazabon wrote:

>Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> wrote:
>  
>
>>On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 06:49 -0800, Frank klein wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>I am having some licensing questions. It would be
>>>really great if you can clarify on them
>>>
>>>1. For explaining the internals of a filesystem in
>>>detail, I need to take their code from kernel sources
>>>'as it is' in the book. Do I need to take any
>>>permissions from the owner/maintainer regarding this ?
>>>Will it violate any license if reproduce the driver
>>>source code in my book ??
>>>      
>>>
>>Legally, not if you mention the licence of the code clearly. 
>>    
>>
>
>I'm not sure that's the case.  Inclusion of significant chunks of source code
>(not just a dozen lines or whatever) might bring the book into "derived work"
>territory, and your publisher is almost certainly not going to allow
>redistribution under the GPL ...
>  
>
I don't think this will be a problem.  The separation between code
and the rest of the book is clear, and the book isn't directly 
executable. :-)

Even a book that mainly list source and merely offer some short explanations
should be easy to get right - the _code_ is GPL so it is okay for people to
photocopy it off the pages (who in their right mind would, though) but
the rest of the book is printed under ordinary terms.

Helge Hafting