Re: GPL and other licences

[Stefaan A Eeckels]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:18:53 +0100
"Alfred M\. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org> wrote:

Attributions yet again fixed. Please do not send me email copies of
your posts. Learn Netiquette, please.

> > AMS wrote:
> >
> > > You do not have to be the owner of the copy in order to exercise
> > > the rights given in the GPL.
> 
> SAE wrote:
>
> > If you are not the owner of the copy, the license --whatever it
> > might be-- doesn't enter into it at all.
> 
> The license does _not_ apply to the physical copy, it applies to the
> software.  Please read the license, it even says so

The software does not exist unless recorded on a physical medium. It
does not exist in the ether, to materialise on a CD or paper through
some kind of Harry Potteresque incantation.

Do you really think that *I* can give someone else permission to copy
files from *your* computer? Do you think its OK for a computer repair
person to copy software from your machine because she notices that a
directory contains the file "COPYING"? That repair person might have
the right to access your computer, and be allowed to copy your disk for
the purposes of recovering it, but she can most certainly not decide
all by herself to make personal copies just because she believes some
files are a work "usually" licensed under the GPL, or apparently
licensed under the GPL.

Even Dubya would not fall for that reasoning.

-- 
Stefaan
-- 
As complexity rises, precise statements lose meaning,
and meaningful statements lose precision. -- Lotfi Zadeh