From: Richard Lawrence <richard.lawrence@berkeley.edu>
To: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
Subject: Re: How to make a non-GPL Org-mode exporter?
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 11:32:54 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87d1zda1t5.fsf@berkeley.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 87pp3dvm18.fsf@mbork.pl
Hi Marcin and all,
Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl> writes:
> after a short discussion in a recent thread, I have a serious technical
> question.
>
> Assume that (for some reason) I want to write an Org-mode exporter which
> won't be GPL'd. (Use-case: having written a few custom exporters, I'm
> writing a tutorial on them, and I consider publishing a *tutorial* with
> GPL'd code a Bad Thing™. (The idea of a programming tutorial is that
> other people can or even should reuse the code in the tutorial, right?
> And I see no reason to impose GPL on them.))
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc., but for what it's
worth, here's my opinion:
It sounds to me like you are not creating a program derived from GPL'ed
code, but rather *quoting* GPL'ed code (and introducing some
modifications to those quotes) in a document whose purpose is to educate
its readers.
I don't know about your jurisdiction, but in the U.S., that sounds to me
like it would fall well within the bounds of fair use:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
(There is also a brief section there about fair use in Poland; maybe
that will help you?)
Only a court can say, but if you are only publishing this source code as
part of a tutorial, so that it
- has an educational purpose
- serves to discuss ideas that can be gleaned from reading the original
- does not substantially copy the original
- does not devalue the original
then I would guess the GPL does not apply to the code, as it is quoted/derived
in your tutorial, due to a fair use limitation.
So my advice would be: (1) treat the code in your tutorial along
whatever lines are appropriate for quotation of copyrighted works in
your jurisdiction; and (2) maybe include a notice in your tutorial to
your readers, that if they create *and distribute* a working exporter
based on the code in your tutorial and/or code in the Org distribution,
the GPL may apply.
If you are actually distributing the complete exporter as a working
program, that seems a little murkier to me; the issue there, as you are
aware, is whether that working program counts as a derived work. I have
no idea how to answer that question.
Hope that helps!
Best,
Richard
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2015-07-27 18:33 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2015-07-27 12:10 How to make a non-GPL Org-mode exporter? Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 12:16 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-27 13:02 ` Rainer M Krug
2015-07-27 13:09 ` Greg Troxel
2015-07-27 13:13 ` Andreas Hilboll
2015-07-27 13:30 ` Rainer M Krug
2015-07-27 14:05 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 14:03 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-28 12:33 ` Paul Rudin
2015-07-27 12:39 ` Daniele Nicolodi
2015-07-27 16:59 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 18:02 ` Nick Dokos
2015-07-27 18:12 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 18:45 ` Daniele Nicolodi
2015-07-28 7:55 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-29 14:54 ` Aaron Ecay
2015-07-30 10:08 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-27 13:05 ` Greg Troxel
2015-07-27 14:32 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 13:58 ` Scott Randby
2015-07-27 16:32 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 15:13 ` Eric S Fraga
2015-07-27 16:01 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 16:12 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-27 17:12 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 17:13 ` Thomas S. Dye
2015-07-27 16:54 ` Eric S Fraga
2015-07-27 17:04 ` Marcin Borkowski
2015-07-27 18:38 ` Eric S Fraga
2015-07-28 8:07 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-28 9:00 ` Eric S Fraga
2015-07-28 9:00 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-28 10:38 ` Eric S Fraga
2015-07-28 9:20 ` Andreas Hilboll
2015-07-28 9:30 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-28 10:14 ` Andreas Hilboll
2015-07-28 10:29 ` Oleh Krehel
2015-07-27 18:32 ` Richard Lawrence [this message]
2015-08-04 15:04 ` Phillip Lord
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