Re: The great BusyBox fraud continues

[Hyman Rosen]

On 8/6/2010 4:21 PM, RJack wrote:
> The above mentioned claim is preempted by 17 USC sec. 301 and is legally
> unenforceable.

17 USC 301 is the law which says that states may not make their
own laws equivalent to copyright. It has nothing at all to do
with the GPL, since the GPL is a license that grants additional
permissions otherwise forbidden by federal copyright law.

> Basic stuff made up by the FSF and stuff that is legally unenforceable.

All licenses are "made up" by their creators. The license is not
enforceable, but copyright is. The license grants permissions
that would not otherwise be available under plain copyright law,
but it grants those permissions only provided the conditions it
specifies are met.

> The thieves are GPL licensors who try to steal other folks copyrights
> with an illegal license.

The license is legal, and its acceptance is voluntary, so it
cannot steal anything. No one can ever be forced to accept the
GPL, but also no one (aside from the copyright holder) may copy
and distribute GPL-covered works without accepting it. The only
"stealing" comes from people who want to copy and distribute
GPL-covered works without accepting the conditions which permit
that.