Re: Is the GPL all encompassing?

[Rjack]

amicus_curious wrote:
> "Hyman Rosen" <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote in message 
> news:ZlEBk.84$GR.80@fe113.usenetserver.com...
> > amicus_curious wrote:
> > > I would agree that providing source code itself is enough to enable a 
> > > user to do all of that regardless of the fact that changes are so 
> > > unlikely to ever occur.  The GPL only adds a provision to enforce 
> > > this on someone who might be unwilling to do so with some improvement 
> > > absent the requirement to divulge any new source.  I think that this 
> > > would never happen in any case. I don't think that it has ever 
> > > happened in the past either.  Who but the project team has ever made 
> > > any change to any major project?
> >
> > I'm sorry, but I don't follow what you are saying - too many "this"
> > where I can't tell to what "this" refers.
>
> To make it more simplified:
>
> You had said:
>
> "It seeks to prevent a software user from being unable to run,
> read, change, or share a program. Since software users are
> routinely denied these freedoms, I fail to see why you think
> what the GPL prevents is not a viable outcome."
>
> I say that the notion of open source in any form would do what you want 
> here.  Say, for example, the MIT License.
>
> I further say that the GPL does not add anything practically useful to 
> this task.  What it adds is a codicile that anyone who does change or 
> share a program must do so under the limits imposed by the GPL.  Simply 
> sharing does not require anything beyond the original distribution and 
> simply pointing another to that is as good as re-publishing it 
> yourself.  Making changes or using a GPL program as a basis for a new 
> program requires the inventor to abandon their rights to control any 
> redistribution.  That may be acceptable to some people and not 
> acceptable to others.  To the extent that it is not acceptable, it 
> stifles innovation.



> > Making changes or using a GPL program as a basis for a new 
> > program requires the inventor to abandon their rights to control any 
> > redistribution.

1) Google {"copyright misuse" enlarge scope }. Compare these results
with your statement ". . . abandon their rights. . .".

2) The GPL was written by RMS and Eben Moglen. The underpinning of
their theory was that the GPL would work because it was not a
contract:

"Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain
within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily
promised, but because she doesn't have any right to act at all
except as the license permits."

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html

The Supreme Court declared in 1927 that a license *was* a contract
-- a rulin that has *never* been disputed in thousands of federal
court decisions for more than eighty years.

So why do folks *start off* with the assumption that legal gibberish 
like the GPL is enforceable? This abandonment of reason by so many
people is truly baffling.

Sincerely,
Rjack :)

-- "Whether express or implied, a license is a contract 'governed
by ordinary principles of state contract law.'"; McCoy v.
Mitsuboshi Cutlery, Inc., 67. F.3d 917, (United States Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit 1995) --

-- "Although the United States Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.  101-
1332, grants exclusive jurisdiction for infringement claims to the
federal courts, those courts construe copyrights as contracts and
turn to the relevant state law to interpret them."; Automation by
Design, Inc. v. Raybestos Products Co., 463 F.3d 749, (United
States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 2006) --