Re: Question About GNU General Public License

[David Kastrup]

<telford@xenon.triode.net.au> writes:

> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> > <telford@xenon.triode.net.au> writes:
> 
> >> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> >> 
> >> > Certainly.  But you'll have a hard time explaining to a court that
> >> > what you sold to the customer and that what the customer desired
> >> > to have was an incomplete program that will not run.  In
> >> > particular if you give the customer tested instructions and
> >> > scripts for combining your program with copyrighted material.
> >> 
> >> A set of tools and instructions to perform a legal act.
> 
> > It is only legal if just the customer is responsible for doing it.
> 
> Can you think of any everyday example where there exists a sequence
> of actions such that if Joe performs those actions it is legal but
> if Fred writes down those actions and hands that to Joe and then Joe
> performs the exact same actions then Fred has performed an illegal
> act?

Fred engages Joe to hand over flowers to Suzy even though Fred is
under a restraining order.  If Joe were to hand over the flowers out
of his own volition, that would be different.

> Suppose Joe is licensed to drive a car and Fred writes down a list
> of directions to get somewhere but Fred is not licensed to drive.
> Joe follows the directions given by Fred and gets to the
> destination.  Who has broken the law here?

The car contains a GPS device.  Once the car is out of a certain area,
a bomb will explode there.  Who has broken the law here?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum