First of all, thank You both/all for answers. On 2026_09_22 21:30, G. Branden Robinson wrote:

... Consider a "Program" in a compiled language like C or C++ that produces a machine language object file (".o").

Here are some matters that are not "settled law", to my knowledge:

* whether "static linking" creates a "Work based on the Program"

(Engineers tend to think it does.)

* whether "dynamic linking" creates a "Work based on the Program"

(Engineers argue vigorously over that.)

* whether dlopen(3)ing an ELF object can alter the answer to the foregoing, and what that means for one's obligations under the GPL if the dlopening of an ELF module is not exercised by the Program in its shipping configuration, but only after reconfiguration by the end user

* whether use of IPC mechanisms, mmap(2), or similar techniques changes the answers to any of the foregoing

The terms of the GPL indeed (in my reading) attempt to consider all of the foregoing scenarios, in language broad enough to be intelligible to legal professionals. I reiterate that my point is that these matters have not been _tested in court_ to my knowledge.

Now consider a "Program" that is an operating system kernel.

Here's another element of unsettled law, to my knowledge:

* whether a "software trap" or a "system call" creates a "Work based on the (kernel) Program"

(As you noted in passing reference to its exception clause, the Linux kernel license explicitly rules this out.)

Did the famous U.S. Supreme Court case _Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc._ (the Java/Dalvik case) resolve any questions about software copyright? Yes and no. ...

Basically, the above quotation just lays it out very explicitly, TOTALLY INDEPENDENT OF PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY about open source or other matters, THAT THE GPL FAILED TO BE CLEAR ENOUGH TO SET THE RULES! Almost as if FUD were some strategy of GPL. Basically, the above quotation just lays it out very explicitly, TOTALLY INDEPENDENT OF PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY about open source or other matters, THAT THE GPL FAILED TO BE CLEAR ENOUGH TO SET THE RULES! Almost as if FUD were some strategy of GPL. What regards to my personal philosophy about open source, then I explain it through my understanding about free speech. True free speech means that anybody can say anything and WITH FREEDOM (to have free speech) COMES RESPONSIBILITY to use one's own filter to discard statements/text/sayings that one DOES NOT LIKE, which obviously people do not like, because from psychology point of view PEOPLE LOVE IF SOMEONE ELSE DOES HARD WORK (of making complex decisions) FOR THEM and this is where no democracy can ever compete with dictatorships. A dictatorship or a religious cult leadership will tell people, how they must live, how to "solve complex life problems" or "the state/church/organization solves difficult problems for You". That is to say, there can not be true free speech, where the state says that other people are not allowed to announce that I(Martin.Vahi@softf1.com) eat little babies as dinner, torture home animals, rape (blank for Your favourite victim candidate), do mass murders, ...(whatever other awful thing). I think that it is the DUTY of other people to use their own brains to figure out, whether this is really, what I do and at the age of fakes and disinformation such self-analysis capability is kind of relevant skill to have. Or, in another words, there can not be "it's night, but since the other side of the planet has a day, then there are exceptions, why the night is still somehow also a little bit of a day", or, there's free speech, but people get punished, if they say X,Y,Z... And that's how I also see the open source philosophy: true open source ethos means that other people can do whatever they want with the freely used source code, make their closed source branch from it and get rich with it without contributing anything back, no code, no money, it's up to them, how they play it. That's why for my own personal projects I only use licenses that are compatible with closed source software and I do not require any code contributions back. I just try to walk my talk. That explains, why I see the whole GPL movement as a bitter counter-reaction to an awful corporate abuse by closed source software companies. But, again, independent of personal philosophy about open source or GPL or fairness in general, the GPL still FAILED TO BE CLEAR about its intentions or there just wouldn't be the discussion that there is in this thread. I understand that different people from different parts of the world have different culture, but I'm an Estonian, born in 1981 Soviet Union (Estonia was occupied back then) and in Estonian culture the concept of "small text" in contracts is just plain oxymoron, because in Estonia the very purpose of the contract IS TO MINIMIZE CONFLICT, not to find ways, how to promise one thing and then withdraw that promise in court by some clever mental schemes by clever lawyers. If the very purpose of the contract is to _minimize_conflict_, then it is _in_the_interest_of_both_parties_ that both parties understand every small nuance of the contract _at_all_times_. The GPL is an American/United_States license, created by Americans, so, hence may be the different design goals of the GPL. The design goals might then cause the intentional vagueness of the GPL. And now, when the GPL is adopted globally, it turns out that people at different regions of the world use contracts very differently than Americans use them, id est the Estonian style use, where contracts are A TOOL FOR CONFLICT MINIMIZATION, and the U.S. style, where contracts tend to be a tool for deceiving people for maximising extortion efficiency (the "small text" concept). There's also the cultural difference about how people perceive lack of efficiency in business processes. In the U.S. if some restaurant or a nightclub or Apple store has people waiting in line to get in, then an Estonian would see it as a sign of a really poor service by the nightclub or restaurant, NOT as a sign that the place is so good that it can't handle all of its clients due to high popularity. A long line in some service sector is an embarrassment for the joint in Estonia, but Americans seem to have a different view to that. May be I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Apple marketing people see it even favourably, if there are long lines at the front of Apple stores right before some new phone or computer comes on sale. In Estonia a long queue is something that older generations associate with Soviet Union era lack of goods and horrible lack of efficiency. May be this also explains, why the authors of GPL did not see anything bad in a course of events, where people waste a lot of time arguing about the exact meaning of the GPL. As the saying goes: "There is no bad marketing, even if it is in a from being infamous".

... However, the Supreme Court did not reach this question, because it ruled that Google's use of Oracle's (Sun Microsystems's successor-in-title) Java APIs via the equivalent of "header files" constituted _fair use_, ...

May be I'm mistaken, but my understanding is that there was no clear decision about "fair use" and the decision in favour of Google ended up being with an argument that the damages to the software industry as a whole would have been be too great if Oracle won and that lawsuit were a precedent to future lawsuits. In another words, some smaller company that does not have Google's legal department budget can still loose (in the U.S., not in the EU) to the arguments that Oracle used, unless they can use the Google-versus-Oracle case as a precedent for their defence.

... I offer two pieces of layperson's advice. ...

I'm thankful for it even if I do not agree with everything.

... 1. Retain the services of an attorney practicing in your jurisdiction who is competent in the copyright laws applicable there. This practice is almost basic due diligence for a software freelancer, in my opinion. Set your consulting rates to offset the retainer that your attorney charges and be frank with your clients that you are doing this. Consider what your client implies about their intentions if they want you to work so cheaply that you cannot afford legal counsel. ...

Again, I'm thankful for the advice, but I can't just hike up the price, because that would eliminate some of my target client candidates. I want my services to be more accessible. Why I want that, is a matter of personal philosophy, not an inability to look for wealthier clients/better-paying-contracts. Secondly, Estonian population is about 1.3 million people, so most of Estonian IT industry serves non-Estonians _around_the_Globe_, there are over 20 states in the European Union and ... Also, it is a fact of life that in very niche areas there are only few providers globally and if they want to make their ends meet, then they have to offer services almost globally. Hiring tens of lawyers even for a one time gig is just outside of my financial capabilities. Even a single one for just Estonia is too much, because it would ruin my price for my Estonian clients. But, again, I'm still thankful for Your kind advice :-)

... 2. I think Dr. Chang Liu, PhD., is better advised to maintain NeptuneOS's public copyright exactly as it is. If you wish to employ that work as part of a solution that you offer for sale to your own clients, and do not wish to abide by the requirements of the GNU GPL, then you can privately negotiate with Dr. Liu for alternative terms. In other words, you can purchase (or agree upon) a license from Dr. Liu just as you might from a traditional, proprietary software vendor. ...

Even if he gave the license for free from monetary point of view, the limits of proprietary software would limit my client (often times some small company or small team at some bigger institution or some startup founders) from freely developing and redistributing that software further. I have a principle that the software that I deliver to my clients must fully be usable as closed source software if my client so chooses, but I always put the reusable, generally useful parts, to my own personal open source projects that have some closed source compatible mainstream licenses(BSD, MIT, public_domain) and my client gets the copyrights only to the code that is so specific to their project that it is just useless for anybody else, including me. At the same time I have a policy to NEVER LOCK ANY CLIENTS IN and I try to make them as autonomous as possible. They hate that I try to make them as autonomous as possible. I always try to deliver a virtual appliance with full development environment to them, in addition to the virtual appliance that runs the software that they ordered from me. They do not need to download everything (usually they do not bother to download everything), but THEY WILL NEVER GET ANY DISCOUNTS FOR NOT DOWNLOADING THE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT VIRTUAL APPLIANCE. It's just there. Just like project documentation. Obviously with that kind of style I do not have any fast deliveries, which in turn is a turnoff for many, but every software developer has its own style.

...

...

thank you for reading my letter.

Thank you for your patience with mine, and for considering my response. ...

Yours was a good letter :-) On 2026_09_23 13:16, Dr. Chang Liu, PhD. wrote:

... ... My main goal of picking the GPLv3 license is to ensure all changes to Neptune OS itself be made public, so a corporation wouldn't be piggy-backing on free software without giving back to the community. My goal is not to prevent one from running proprietary software or from shipping a commercial product based on Neptune OS, although I do understand that GPLv3 may have been perceived to prevent the former. ...

Thank You for Your answer. Well, the above quote just explicitly confirms, what a mess the GPL is from unambiguous understanding point of view.

... In the VM scenario discussed above, our architecture means that this closed-source VM image is running in an isolated user process that communicates with the rest of the system only via the seL4 IPC, so it's running along side GPLv3 software, not as part of it (there is a small, dynamically linked shim library involved that constructs the messages for IPC, but that library is only for convenience. You can build the IPC messages yourself, or contact me to request this small library be dual-licensed). In any case, if you do plan to use Neptune OS in any project, commercial or otherwise, I'd love to hear from you to discuss any technical or legal issues you have concerns about. ...

Thank You for the clarification and thank You for the kind cooperative sentiment. I'll save this thread to a separate email folder so that Your offer is not lost for me, should I get so far with any of my projects, but despite Your kind cooperation, it would probably save Your own time, if You considered switching to LGPL, because the LGPL can be used without needing to hope that one gets all the technical details right about interfacing a user space program with an operating system. Given Your current answer, Your choice seems to be: option_1) Stick with GPL without explicit exceptions at the license file and then try to explain, how the GPL is not an obstacle at running closed source software, hoping that other people have not noticed the fact that at court rooms the lawyers will not understand any technical details, which makes deep technical explanations UNUSABLE AS A DEFENCE AT COURT ROOMS! option_2) Switch to some other license that even a non-technical lawyer IN ANY COUNTRY unambiguously understands to allow the running of closed source software on Neptune OS even if Neptune OS is distributed as a dependency of the closed source software. To put it bluntly, in business world it is not sufficient that due to an exception of an exception of an exception of an exception of an ... X is legal. In business world things are evaluated with safety margins in the bad direction. A tax of Y.4% is calculated as a tax of (Y+1)% despite the fact that Y.49999 is mathematically rounded to Y. The exact calculations with Y.4% are used later, at accountancy, when sales is taking place, not at the initial business plan calculations. Business plan calculations are always with safety margins! That goes also for non-numeric aspects of a project, including license evaluations. It seems to me that people with academic background tend not to understand that in business world an initial evaluation about a feasibility of a project, the do-or-skip decision, is done by using broad safety margins and nobody will start looking at minuscule details. That is also why the Donald Trump's reversal of Biden's AI chip sales ban to Eastrn-Euoropean European Union countries (Estonia included) did not eliminate the damage that the Biden's AI chip ban (about a week before he left office) made, because from business perspective the message of the AI chip sale ban was very clear: Trump made it legal again to sell AI chips "there"/here(Estonia), but there's always some business risk that the region is not seen as a "proper West" and therefore it's safer to not create an AI data centre at "that region" (even if there weren't the risk of an Estonian-Russian war). Or to put it more poetically: it would be beneficial for academicians to take the napkin calculations way more seriously than they tend to do :-D Anyways, thank You all for Your answers and thank You for reading my letter :-)