Re: Copyright Misuse Doctrine in Apple v. Psystar

[Rahul Dhesi]

"amicus_curious" <ACDC@sti.net> writes:

>> ...If takes negligible effort to include a copy of the GPL with
>> their software distributions. If they don't, this is clearly an attempt
>> to hide their wrong-doing.
>> -- 
>I don't agree with that.  The FOSS value proposition is that if you use
>it, fine, and if you modify it and distribute it you must disclose your
>modifications....

You are confusing here between FOSS in general (which sometimes but not
always requires disclosure of modifications) and the GPL in particular
(which always requires disclosure of modifications for software that you
distribute, but not for software that you use privately).

But still, all of the free or open software licenses, so far as I can
tell, require that a copy of the license be included when the covered
software is distributed. The original and newer BSD licenses do, the
Apache license does, the MIT license does, the Perl Artistic license
does, and the GPL does.

Not including the license clearly indicates that the person or company
distributing the does not wish those receiving the distributed software
to realize that it's covered by a specific license. This is especially
true if the distributed software is accompanied by a vendor's own
license.

It's very convenient for a vendor to claim that the original license was
somehow overlooked.  But I find this claim not credible at all,
especially for any company that went to the trouble of creating its own
license and include that.

Discussion of some subjective "value proposition" doesn't change the
above.
-- 
Rahul
http://rahul.rahul.net/