[Corpora-List] Licensing output of a GPL'd morphological analyser

[Jimmy O'Regan]

2010/1/15 Adam Radziszewski <kocikikut at gmail.com>:
> Dear corpora users,
> we've got a formal problem with understanding of GPL licences when
> applied to a morphological analyser and its output. I'm sure someone
> before has dealt with a similar issue (and this may be of interest to
> others as well), so I'm asking for help here.
>
> Let's assume a morphological analyser is released under GPL. It
> consists of an extensive lexicon (which in binary form is compiled to
> a transducer) and the actual source code of the transducer and some
> interface. The analyser reads plain text, tokenises it and outputs a
> sequence of tokens with sets of tags attached (each word is assigned
> its entry from the underlying lexicon).
>
> The problem is: does the licence require that a corpus which is
> obtained by running the analyser must be released under a similar
> licence as well?
>
> Why yes: source code is "the preferred form of the work for making
> modifications to it [a work]" (www.gnu.org), thus in case of such an
> analyser, it should include the lexicon as well. What the analyser
> actually does is to systematically dump parts of its lexicon (thus its
> source code) and attach them to output. So the resulting corpus
> actually contains parts of the source code of the analyser.
>
> Why no: this situation resembles using the GNU compiler. When
> compiling some code, gcc outputs some parts of its components to
> generate the resulting object/binary. Yet nobody claims that any
> output of gcc automatically becomes GPL'd.

GCC does not output parts of its source, which is the pertinent
factor. Bison, the GNU parser creation tool, does, and includes a
specific exception to the usual terms of the GPL for exactly the case
where its output could be deemed a derivative work.

If you are creating an analyser and wish to avoid this situation,
perhaps you should add such an exception; if you intend to use one,
perhaps you should ask the creators their opinion on the matter -
perhaps they will add the exception themselves; if you want a rule of
thumb to use in such situations generally, the Free Software
Foundation are the best people to ask (they're generally quite helpful
and quick to respond).

(In my own opinion, as this is the intended use of a morphological
analyser, the terms of the GPL do not apply, as the GPL does not carry
restrictions on use, but I'm not a lawyer, etc.).
-- 
<Leftmost> jimregan, that's because deep inside you, you are evil.
<Leftmost> Also not-so-deep inside you.

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