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Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?
From: |
Rjack |
Subject: |
Re: Is the GPL all encompassing? |
Date: |
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:32:07 -0500 |
User-agent: |
Thunderbird 2.0.0.16 (Windows/20080708) |
amicus_curious wrote:
"Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message
news:ZlEBk.84$GR.80@fe113.usenetserver.com...
amicus_curious wrote:
I would agree that providing source code itself is enough to enable a
user to do all of that regardless of the fact that changes are so
unlikely to ever occur. The GPL only adds a provision to enforce
this on someone who might be unwilling to do so with some improvement
absent the requirement to divulge any new source. I think that this
would never happen in any case. I don't think that it has ever
happened in the past either. Who but the project team has ever made
any change to any major project?
I'm sorry, but I don't follow what you are saying - too many "this"
where I can't tell to what "this" refers.
To make it more simplified:
You had said:
"It seeks to prevent a software user from being unable to run,
read, change, or share a program. Since software users are
routinely denied these freedoms, I fail to see why you think
what the GPL prevents is not a viable outcome."
I say that the notion of open source in any form would do what you want
here. Say, for example, the MIT License.
I further say that the GPL does not add anything practically useful to
this task. What it adds is a codicile that anyone who does change or
share a program must do so under the limits imposed by the GPL. Simply
sharing does not require anything beyond the original distribution and
simply pointing another to that is as good as re-publishing it
yourself. Making changes or using a GPL program as a basis for a new
program requires the inventor to abandon their rights to control any
redistribution. That may be acceptable to some people and not
acceptable to others. To the extent that it is not acceptable, it
stifles innovation.
Making changes or using a GPL program as a basis for a new
program requires the inventor to abandon their rights to control any
redistribution.
1) Google {"copyright misuse" enlarge scope }. Compare these results
with your statement ". . . abandon their rights. . .".
2) The GPL was written by RMS and Eben Moglen. The underpinning of
their theory was that the GPL would work because it was not a
contract:
"Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain
within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily
promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all
except as the license permits."
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html
The Supreme Court declared in 1927 that a license *was* a contract
-- a rulin that has *never* been disputed in thousands of federal
court decisions for more than eighty years.
So why do folks *start off* with the assumption that legal gibberish
like the GPL is enforceable? This abandonment of reason by so many
people is truly baffling.
Sincerely,
Rjack :)
-- "Whether express or implied, a license is a contract 'governed
by ordinary principles of state contract law.'"; McCoy v.
Mitsuboshi Cutlery, Inc., 67. F.3d 917, (United States Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit 1995) --
-- "Although the United States Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101-
1332, grants exclusive jurisdiction for infringement claims to the
federal courts, those courts construe copyrights as contracts and
turn to the relevant state law to interpret them."; Automation by
Design, Inc. v. Raybestos Products Co., 463 F.3d 749, (United
States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 2006) --
- Is the GPL all encompassing?, Rjack, 2008/09/20
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, amicus_curious, 2008/09/20
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Rjack, 2008/09/20
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, amicus_curious, 2008/09/20
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/21
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, amicus_curious, 2008/09/21
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/21
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, amicus_curious, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?,
Rjack <=
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, amicus_curious, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, amicus_curious, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Rahul Dhesi, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Rjack, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Hyman Rosen, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, Rjack, 2008/09/22
- Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?, chrisv, 2008/09/24