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Re: GPL and other licences


From: Alfred M. Szmidt
Subject: Re: GPL and other licences
Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 12:12:30 +0100

   > The license _does_ apply.

   It applies to the licensee, the company.  Not its workers.

The workers are also the licensees.

   > It is you who don't get it.  You are saying that all companies
   > that have illegal copies of Windows, are not breaking the law,

   Liar.  I say no such thing.

| You just don't get it.  You can't do _anything_, period, with
| company property without company permission.  You are not the owner.
| The license does not apply to you.  Neither does copyright.  Your
| rights are restricted to what the company allows you to do with its
| property.

Since copyright does not apply to _me_ I can go and install anything I
want on the companies machines.

Please, stop the name calling.  You are getting worse than Alexander.

   > since they are `for internal use' and no rules apply.

   Nonsense.  Any company that does so is breaking the law.  Since the
   _company_ is bound by the license.  And a company worker is to some
   part responsible for that as well: if the company head tells a worker
   to dump poisonous substances into a river (or commit murder, to make
   this more blunt), the worker can be held responsible by the state.
   But certainly so can be the company.

Now you are contradicting your self, either a company worker is
partially responsible for something, or he/she isn't.  You have
claimed several times now that the company worker is not bound by
anything.

   Where crime is concerned, every individual can beheld accountable
   _as_ _well_ as his superiors and company in general, if it is done
   as part of his job and not his own idea.  But we are not talking
   about crimes.  We are talking about licenses and permissions,
   rights.  And the worker does not acquire any rights to company
   property.

Property != Software!  Why are you confusing the two?  I'm not talking
about property, we agree on that.  If the company lends me a car, then
it isn't my car.  Simple as that.  Why are you insisting on this?

   > You are also speaking about some kind of owner of the software,
   > you cannot own software!

   Liar.  I am pointing out time and again that it is the physical
   tangible copy that is owned.  And this ownership which is not
   transferred to the company worker implies rights to the content:
   granted by copyright, possibly constrained by contracts, possibly
   extended by licenses.  The company is bound by those conditions,
   and they don't magically disappear because a worker is acting on
   behalf of this company.

Stop calling me a liar.  It doesn't serve any thing other than fuel
this disucssion to the point of a flame.  You have on continued basis
claimed that software is property.  And you have on a continued basis
resorted to name calling.

You also seem to not grasp anything that we are discussing, it is the
_software_ located _ON_ the CD, not the CD itself.  Stop insisting
that it is otherwise.

Once again you go on to the border of absurdity, name calling, and
simply distorting everything.  

   The licensee is bound by the license.  The licensee is the company,
   and has to abide by the license.

If I have the software in my hand it is _I_ who am the licensee.  Not
the company.  You cannot buy a license for a company, you can buy a
license for N number of people.

   Liar.  There is no "private copy" involved here at all, and you can do
   _nothing_ whatsoever with a company copy except what the company tells
   you.

I cannot do anything with the physical copy yes, if I make a copy of
the software located on the physical copy, no, then I'm bound by the
license of the software.

And once again, why are you dropping to the levels of Alexander?

   Copyright does not apply here.  You get _no_ rights to copy or
   otherwise use the software, under _no_ circumstances.  Because as a
   company worker you are not the person owning the copy.  And the
   _rights_ granted by either copyright or license apply _only_ to the
   owner of software.

Once again, if you speak about a physical entity, you are correct.
But I am speaking about a copy of the software that was located on
this physical entity, then copyright law applies.  You once again
confuse two different things: tangible vs. intangible.

You cannot redictate the terms that a copyright holder put on
something.  It doesn't matter if it is `internal use' or not.  If you
give me as a company employee a CD with software on it, and that
software allows me to use, modify, distribute, and study it, then I
can do those things.  I cannot go and give away the _CD_ unless I have
permission from the company, but I can redistribute the software that
is stored on that CD if the copyright holder gave me such permission.
The company cannot ever redictate the terms of the copyright holder,
period.

What part of this is so hard to understand?  I'm sad to say that you
have dropped below the level I thought a person could drop, even
Alexander makes more sense than you on a bad day.




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