Re: Microsoft needs a help strategy

[ZnU]

In article <4980a453$0$21838$ec3e2dad@news.usenetmonster.com>,
 "amicus_curious" <ACDC@sti.net> wrote:

> "David Kastrup" <dak@gnu.org> wrote in message 
> 85bptrnsam.fsf@lola.goethe.zz">news:85bptrnsam.fsf@lola.goethe.zz...
> 
> >
> > The recipient of GPLed software is free to declare the GPL void and
> > revert to default copyright rules.
> >
> What is at issue today, though, is the nature of such "default copyright 
> rules".  If there is no fee charged to use the work or to redistribute the 
> work, the copyright can be ignored unless the author can show some degree of 
> harm to himself.

If we're talking about Party A redistributing Party B's unmodified GPL'd 
work without making the source available, this may be true. But this is 
trivial, since the source is available to anyone who wants it in this 
instance from Party B. If a court found against the GPL in a case along 
these lines, nothing substantial would change.

If we're talking about Party A modifying Party B's GPL'd work and 
redistributing the modified software without making the source 
available, it seems fairly clear that Party B *has* been harmed in this 
transaction.

-- 
"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them
‹ that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer
apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too
small, but whether it works [...]"        -- Barack Obama, January 20th, 2008