Re: May I publish a Windows Installer for GNU Emacs?

[Richard Stallman]

    > Under copyright law, you are free to run this copy of GNU Emacs.

    Actually, not even that is true.  If I steal some Linux CD's
    including only free software, I don't acquire the right to run the
    software.

If they are truly Linux CDs, you could not run them anyway, since a
kernel alone won't run.  But if they were CDs of a released version of
GNU/Linux, then you could run them.

I discussed this issue with our lawyer, and we concluded that if there
was no trade secret in the code you stole, you do have the GPL rights
in using it.