Is linux free 5015

That's colourful, but -- to be blunt -- consbreastutes rationalising from a false premise. If you start out with a belief that something obviously untrue is true, then you can arrive at pretty much any conclusion you want to aim for.

To properly understand GPLv2's term "mere aggregation" in a legal context, you have to first understand that it's an indirect reference to the term of art from copyright law, "derivative work" (which is in fact also used elsewhere in the licence text) -- and then you have to study some of the caselaw that outlines what that concept is supposed to mean when applied to software. If concerned with USA jurisdictions, you would end up studying CAI v. Altai, which introduced the "abstraction, filtration, comparison" standard for software cases, and Gates Rubber v. Bando Chemical, which further clarified it.

I have read those opinions, and am afraid I can't take seriously anyone's claim that everything on a Linux distribution is derivative of its GPLed toolkits and similar parts. Imagine what a revolution in the software business would result, if that were true! Every piece of software for MS-Windows would be a derivative work of Microsoft Corporation's core libraries, tools, and development kits -- which in turn would be a derivative work of Digital Research's CP-M, which no doubt would be a derivative work of something else, ad nauseum.

And plainly none of that is the case. The judge would throw any such plaintiff out on his-her butt.

It won't work without electric power, either. That's a bulls legal

GPLv2 actually doesn't even attempt to define "derivative work": It can't. That's a term of art (a term with special, technical, defined meaning) in copyright law. Moglen and company were much too smart to attempt otherwise.

As I'd always buttumed was true of most other (post-adolescent, anyway) Usenet participants, I'm almost never interested in altering the personal views of any single person: I'm writing to clarify issues for the entire applicable body of readers of various newsgroups, and to express my views to them as best I can.

Basically. I'm certainly not egotistical enough to claim any sort of monopoly on the truth, though: I'm just trying to be clear and articulate, and with luck clarify issues. What people choose to think after that is entirely their affair.

-- Cheers, Chip Salzenberg: "Usenet is not a right." Rick Moen Edward Vielmetti: "Usenet is a right, a left, a jab, The postman hits! You have new mail."