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Re: LGPL or GPL+"plugins welcome" ?


From: David Kastrup
Subject: Re: LGPL or GPL+"plugins welcome" ?
Date: 06 Jul 2004 12:48:41 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3.50

Stefaan A Eeckels <tengo@DELETEMEecc.lu> writes:

> On 06 Jul 2004 10:38:48 +0200
> David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> > > Strictly speaking, it's not a "verbatim" copy :-)
> > 
> > I fail to see that.
> 
> cmp sees it without problems ;-)

The above sentence contains 3 unmodified verbatim copies of "e".

The GPL states

   Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
   of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

We are talking not about changing it, but prefacing it.  This is not
a change in either the technical sense, or in the legal sense in this
case.

It would be a change in the legal sense if it started out with
something like

    Note: wherever in the following licence text the word "not"
    appears, instead "always" is implied.  The "copyright holder" in
    the following text always refers to the Salvation army even where
    stated differently.  The term "Software" shall refer exclusively
    to sculptures made from marshmallows.

However, as long as no third party software is involved, it is
perfectly legal for the copyright holder to essentially create and
explain his completely different interpretation of the GPL as long as
the GPL itself is included verbatim in the text.

A potential user of the software would then have to heed the creative
reinterpretation.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

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