Re: [ANNOUNCE] DSFS Network Forensic File System for Linux Patches

["Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey@soleranetworks.com>]

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

>On Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:00:45 MDT, "Jeff V. Merkey" said:
>
>  
>
>> There's also a more fundamental problem with the GPL language.  The GPL stated it
>>confers "RIGHT TO COPY".  This is not the same as "RIGHT TO GRANT
>>LICENSES TO DISTRIBUTE."  Under US copyright law, if you confer to any person
>>the "right to copy" in a license which states the software is FREE, you have in essense
>>affected a copyright transfer to each and every person who receives the 
>>code.
>>    
>>
>
>Bullshit.
>
>17 USC 106(3) talks about transfer of ownership *of the item*, not of the
>copyright itself (see 17 USC 202, which clarifies this).  So you can sell a
>book - but that isn't transferring the copyright of the book.  There isn't any
>actual transfer without a document that actually *SAYS* "transfer of copyright" -
>see 17 USC 204 (a) (Note that there's whole companies in Utah, with actual
>large legal teams, that seem unclear on the concept in 17 USC 204(a), so I'm
>not surprised that you're confused on this as well).
>
>  
>
I have responded all I am going to on this topic.  Further discussion 
will not be helpful.  The patches are provided
IAW the GPL.  Our proprietary application is just like the thousands of 
others provided on Linux, and it
does use or incorporate any GPL or Linux code.

I will not respond to any further discussion on this thread.  Thanks for 
the input.  Please feel free to read Linus
statements on kernel.org regarding the statements that applications that 
run on Linux and that use published
interfaces are unaffected by the GPL.

Thanks for your input.

Jeff