Re: TomTom, the GPL and patents

[John Hasler]

rjack writes:
> By the way, your "four freedoms" are really "restrictions" cloaked in
> socialist semantics.

They are not restrictions at all.  What is a restriction is copyright: it
is the government telling you what you may and may not do with your own
property.  Why is that not "socialist"?

Hyman writes:
> The purpose of distributing under the GPL is so that users can run, read,
> modify, and share the software they receive. If something would prevent
> them from doing these things, then their freedoms are vitiated.  Under
> those circumstances, there is no point in distributing software them, and
> so the GPL forbids it.

Only if it is something _you_ do, such as requiring them to agree to a
patent license (or sublicense) that would prevent them from exercising the
rights they would otherwise heve under the GPL.
-- 
John Hasler 
john@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA