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Re: GPL traitor !


From: Hyman Rosen
Subject: Re: GPL traitor !
Date: Fri, 15 May 2009 11:38:31 -0400
User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (Windows/20090302)

Alan Mackenzie wrote:
Yeah.  You distribute the separate piece separately, saying in the README
"To get the rest of the stuff you need, download from http://....";.
It doesn't count as distributing the whole when you split it up, package
it in two dissimilar boxes which reach the customer by different routes.
You reckon a judge will buy that?

Yes, of course. Instructions to copy a program are not the same
thing as copying a program. A collective work is a collective work
only when it is actually constructed. When there is no copying,
copyright does not come into play.  You really must come to terms
with this. Copyright is about copying.

And with the GPL, there is no violation when the end user finally
follows the instructions and builds the combined program, because
this is something the GPL allows without restriction. So yes, the
judge will not mind at all.

silly statute

Do you listen to yourself speaking? Don't you realize that it's
that "silly statute" that permits so much free software to exist
and interoperate with non-free software?

that company didn't distribute its adapted versions of the program

Just as in my examples, where no one is shipping an adapted version
of the program either. I am talking about shipping only the add-on,
not the entire program. It's the final user who builds the adapted
version for himself, as the statute permits.


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