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- From: johnston@me.udel.edu (Bill Johnston)
- Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc,misc.legal
- Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
- Message-ID: <C0Jtvr.Bsr@news.udel.edu>
- Date: 8 Jan 93 18:55:03 GMT
- References: <1993Jan7.230129.19091@husc3.harvard.edu> <FRIEDMAN.93Jan8024448@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu> <1993Jan8.115714.19103@husc3.harvard.edu>
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-
- In article <1993Jan8.115714.19103@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
-
- >[...] With regard to the ownership issue, my reference is to the
- >Paragraph 5 of the Version 1, as was discussed in the preceding article;
- >I will not bother pointing it out in the text posted on the net.
-
- OK. I'll make it even easier. Here is paragraph 5 of version 1.0
- of the GNU General Public License, from the file "COPYING-1.0"
- available on prep.ai.mit.edu and other gnu archive sites.
-
- --- begin included text ---
-
- We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
- (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
- distribute and/or modify the software.
-
- --- end included text ---
-
- Strictly speaking, this paragraph is contained in the Preamble to
- the license text, which explains how the GPL works. It is not
- part of the GPL itself, which begins after the preamble with the
- words:
-
- GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
- TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
-
- etc.
-
- What is meant by Paragraph 5 is that the FSF "COPYING" terms have
- two essential parts, both of which must be present if their "evil
- scheme" ;-) is to work. The first part is that the software must
- be released with an explicit copyright statement such as:
-
- Copyright (C) 19yy <name of author>
-
- The second part of the scheme is to attach the license, which
- describes the terms under which the copyright owner, "<name of
- author>", permits others to "copy, distribute and/or modify
- the software."
-
- That my interpretation of Paragraph 5 is indeed the one intended
- by its author(s) should be obvious after reading the Appendix of
- the file "COPYING", which follows the line
-
- END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
-
- which marks the end of the license proper.
-
- Here is the text of that Appendix to "COPYING 1.0", to be consistent
- with Mr. Zeleny's reference to v.1.0. A similar Appendix is present in
- "COPYING-2.0", which I posted earlier. It should be readily apparent
- that the Appendix describes a procedure by which an author/owner can
- apply the terms of the GPL to work copyrighted in his or her name.
-
- --- begin included text ---
-
- Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
-
- If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
- possible use to humanity, the best way to achieve this is to make it
- free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
- terms.
-
- To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to
- attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey
- the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the
- "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
-
- <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
- Copyright (C) 19yy <name of author>
-
- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
- it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
- the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
- any later version.
-
- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
- but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
- MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
- GNU General Public License for more details.
-
- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
- along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
- Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
-
- Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
-
- If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
- when it starts in an interactive mode:
-
- Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19xx name of author
- Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
- This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
- under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
-
- The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
- appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the
- commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show
- c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your
- program.
-
- You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
- school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
- necessary. Here a sample; alter the names:
-
- Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the
- program `Gnomovision' (a program to direct compilers to make passes
- at assemblers) written by James Hacker.
-
- <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
- Ty Coon, President of Vice
-
- That's all there is to it!
-
- --- end included text ---
-
- Returning to the article posted by Mr. Zeleny:
-
- MZ:
- >The
- >question is precisely, to what extent the GPL attempts to supersede the
- >legal ownership rights attached to the copyright; I shall not presume to
- >judge the extent of its success in this attempt.
-
- The answer, precisely, is "none".
-
- To paraphrase two earlier bits from Mr. Zeleny's contribution
- to this discussion:
-
- 1) Now would be a good time for Mr. Zeleny to admit his error.
-
- 2) Are you going to be a man or a mouse about it, Mr. Zeleny?
-
- Please note that I am not accusing you Mr. Zeleny of "prevaricating"
- in repeatedly making false statements about the GPL; I merely
- point out his error. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
- --
- -- Bill Johnston (johnston@me.udel.edu)
- -- 38 Chambers Street; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949
-