It might be that Toybox is derivative of Busybox. Parts of Toybox were written for Busybox, and presumably are derivative of other parts of Busybox. They were then removed from Busybox and put in Toybox, which does the same thing, just without other parts of Busybox.

But the really nasty part of all of this is that Toybox's only purpose is to allow the GPL on the kernel to be infringed with impunity, because kernel developers currently aren't cooperating with SFC.

Does anyone want to sell their copyright on existing kernel code? I'd throw you a few bucks to contribute it to SFC.

perhaps with a drop or two of oil or alcohol between the

That's thinking in Earth terms. This thing was in hard vacuum for more than a year.

I had a motherboard that provided a ROM flash program as a DOS application. FreeDOS ran it.

I gave them money too, and I don't have a "pro" account.

But I can't say I want one now. I gave them money so they'd stay free. They didn't stay free.

The court would probably decide based on testimony of experts on both sides. See my JMRI testimony for an example of how Open Source licenses are explained to judges. In the case of Fyodor's addition, it would be both lawyers and experts on the defense side citing cases that go against Fyodor's interpretation. Some of those cases would be precedential to the court hearing the case, meaning that the court would be required to align itself with the previous opinion unless the judge can produce an explanation of why the opinion in the preveious case does not apply to the present one.

You wrote:

, if you bundled Emacs together with my text as a single package, then I can't see why it can't be a derivative work of both my text and Emacs.

I am afraid this might just be a matter of expertise.

If I included your text in the Emacs source code, as some sort of template, you'd have reason to believe that I was creating a derivative work. However, I also have distributed Emacs on a Debian distribution (I created some of the early Debian distribution masters) along with thousands of texts and programs. I did this free of even the hint of legal challenge that programs aggregated together were derivative of each other .

That Debian CD was self-booting, self-extracting, really very similar to the Windows installer being discussed. If I tried to testify that the Windows installer was derivative, a canny defense expert would cue the lawyer to cross-examine me about that Debian CD, and she'd be right, it would discredit my (theoretical) testimony.

The problem with the redefinition of derivative work isn't that there's no contract, it's that legal professionals already know what derivative works are, and would prove in court, easily, that what Fyodor thinks is derivative actually isn't. Fyodor would have to state it differently than he has to make this stick.

You're smoking too much of that hydroponic crap to think straight, troll. I'm not going to feed you any longer. Doobie doobie do

No, I am not admitted to the bar, but a good deal of my income comes from working on Open Source issues with attorneys, and I teach attorneys, with CLE credit awarded in some states, about Open Source legal issues. I am an expert witness on just the sort of issue that is being discussed.

"Aggregation" is the word we use for the combination of software items on a medium that are not derivative works of the other software. It doesn't really make sense to say "that aggregation is a derivative work", if it were derivative it would not be an aggregation.

I am just not coming up with a theory that would make the installer a derivative work of the payload. The installer package is a medium from which the payload can be extracted and becomes separate files, identical to their form before being archived, that is the function of the installer. The installer copies the and stores data the way that Emacs copies and stores the text that you type while it runs. Yet, nobody attempts to make the case that Emacs is a derivative work of your text, that would be absurd, even if the text, by itself, is highly protected and very valuable. Nor do we find people claiming that GCC is a derivative work of the software they compile.

If I was called on to testify, that's what I'd say.

Oh, biddy kid is in a bad mood. Biddy kid should know I don't have anything to do with testing nmap. But tonight biddy kid is upset because he got in trouble with his mommy. So, he's taking all of his anger to Slashdot! I'll get that Bruce Perens for what my mommy did to me!

What's this, Anonymous Coward changed his name for the evening?

I've not a windows system to try the nmap installer. Didn't figure that out, did you?