@@ -139,25 +139,25 @@ more complex obligations under the license.\footnote{There has been much legal
distributing GPL'd software. Those interested in this issue should study
\tutorialpartsplit{\textit{Detailed Analysis of the GNU GPL and Related
Licenses}'s Section on derivative works}{\S~\ref{derivative-works} of
this tutorial}.}
However, experienced GPL enforcers find that few redistributors'
compliance challenges relate directly to combined work issues in copyleft.
Instead, the distributions of GPL'd
systems most often encountered typically consist of a full operating system
including components under the GPL (e.g., Linux, BusyBox) and components
under the LGPL (e.g., the GNU C Library). Sometimes, these programs have
been patched or slightly improved by direct modification of their sources,
resulting unequivocally in a derivative work. Alongside these programs,
and thus the result is unequivocally a derivative work. Alongside these programs,
companies often distribute fully independent, proprietary programs,
developed from scratch, which are designed to run on the Free Software operating
system but do not combine with, link to, modify, derive from, or otherwise
create a combined work with
the GPL'd components.\footnote{However, these programs do often combine
with LGPL'd libraries. This is discussed in detail in \S~\ref{lgpl}.}
In the latter case, where the work is unquestionably a separate work of
creative expression, no copyleft provisions are invoked.
The core compliance issue faced, thus, in such a situation, is not an discussion of what is or is not a
combined or derivative work, but rather, issues related to distribution and
conveyance of binary works based on GPL'd source, but without Complete,
Corresponding Source. This tutorial therefore focuses primarily on that issue.