The copyright can only protect the actual file. The ideas expressed
inside the file are not protectable, unless patents are involved.
It only matters if one can prove it is a derived work.
Otherwise, it is a combined work and GPL does not cover "combination"
works.
On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Russell King wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 01:58:40AM -0800, Balbir Singh wrote:
> > Looking at the recent posting on lkml, I find that
> > a lot of people tend to take and apply patches posted
> > on lkml into proprietary modules.
>
> There are two ways to look at a patch on a public mailing list such as
> LKML - either it is a public publication without restriction, or it
> is a derived work of a copyrighted work, where the copyright on that
> work explicitly covers derived works. I'm not going to argue which
> since that's the domain of legal people to sort out, and one that I'm
> not particularly interested in.
>
> However, basic common sense suggests that if a patch author wants to
> ensure that patches are not used in a way that they do not intend them
> to be used, then the patch author should explicitly state the license
> that they supply the patches under.
>
> --
> Russell King (rmk@arm.linux.org.uk) The developer of ARM Linux
> http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/personal/aboutme.html
>
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>
Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group
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