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- From: mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum)
- Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc,alt.usage.english,alt.society.anarchy
- Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
- Date: 6 Jan 1993 02:44:13 GMT
- Organization: /etc/organization
- Lines: 75
- Message-ID: <1idh1tINN5dk@life.ai.mit.edu>
- References: <1993Jan2.215318.18942@husc3.harvard.edu> <C0AsFJ.AnF@mtholyoke.edu> <1993Jan3.174518.18964@husc3.harvard.edu>
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-
- In article <1993Jan3.174518.18964@husc3.harvard.edu>
- zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
- >
- > Get it through your head, -- most people have no option, but to pay
- > for distribution in one way or another. Again, this is not what I
- > find objectionable, except in conjunction with the following.
-
- You are `free' to copy it from someone else, download it over a modem,
- purchase a tape or CD-ROM from the FSF -- or from several other sources
- -- or even purchase a tape drive. The same applies to any `free'
- program; it doesn't just magically show up on your computer, and no
- organization is simply going to give a free tape to anyone who asks.
-
- > Please try to understand my position. As a sometime programmer, I am
- > placed under an automatic obligation to attach the GPL license to any
- > piece of my code that contains the most minute fraction of GNU, quite
- > regardless of whether I wish to redistribute it.
-
- You are bound by the legal terms of the GPL or the LGPL (whichever is
- appropriate) if you wish to distribute a program containing a piece of
- code which falls under either license. You are under similar
- obligation when you redistribute Berkeley software, or any other work
- whatsoever since the Berne convention was adopted; you must leave the
- copyright (if present) intact and obey its terms. In the case of the
- GPLs or the Berkeley copyright, that does not prevent you from either
- distributing it or making a profit by doing so.
-
- Your statement is also misleading. To quote the GPL:
-
- These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
- identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
- and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
- themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
- sections when you distribute them as separate works.
-
- To demonstrate, the fact that program X uses the GNU regexp routines
- does not equate to it being required to have a `copyleft'. Program X
- could be distributed, without the regexp routines, under a completely
- different license. In fact, in this case, it could be distributed in
- binary form, alongside a copy of the regexp routines in source form, as
- permitted by the LGPL. This would probably even apply if the regexp
- routines used the GPL.
-
- Another quote from the GPL:
-
- Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
- your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
- exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
- collective works based on the Program.
-
- > [...]; my difference from Stallman, now as it was over seven years
- > ago, is that I regard his imposition of a *legal* bond as wholly
- > incompatible with the billing of "Free Software".
-
- If what you mean by `free' is `completely unrestricted', then you are
- naive. A passage from an article titled `What Is Copyleft?':
-
- The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public
- domain, uncopyrighted. But this allows anyone to copyright and
- restrict its use against the author's wishes, thus denying others the
- right to access and freely redistribute it. This completely perverts
- the original intent.
-
- I have said before that one cannot legislate freedom; but given a
- society which wholeheartedly believes in laws and punishment, we have
- no choice but to apply the same rules when we play the game ourselves.
-
- --
- I speak only for me.
-
- --
- \ / Charles Hannum, mycroft@ai.mit.edu
- /\ \ PGP public key available on request. MIME, AMS, NextMail accepted.
- Scheme White heterosexual atheist male (WHAM) pride!
-