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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.ececs.uc.edu!newsfeeds.sol.net!noc.nyx.net!nyx10.cs.du.edu!not-for-mail From: colin@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Colin Plumb) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: GPL Date: 19 Feb 1997 19:15:34 -0700 Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci. Lines: 36 Message-ID: <5egc46$eug@nyx10.cs.du.edu> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <m23evgchq9.fsf@maxwell.sfhs.floyd.k12.ky.us> <5d2jpo$bb1@omega.gmd.de> <LJn9y0gTzz1L091yn@ibm.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: nyx10.nyx.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:160135 comp.os.linux.networking:69406 comp.os.linux.advocacy:85136 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2573 comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy:53985 comp.os.os2.advocacy:268984 In article <LJn9y0gTzz1L091yn@ibm.net>, Mouth of the South <mouth@ibm.net> wrote: > Code covered by GPL is neither public domain nor "public sources." It is > COPYRIGHTED and ownership belongs to the copyright holder who copyrighted > it under local copyright law, which is turn is recognized by the copyright > laws of other countries. Under the terms of the GPL, the holder of the > copyright authorizes or "licenses" others to use the software, but only if > they are agreeable to the terms of the "license." If they do not agree, > or if local law does not permit them to agree, the right to copy and create > derivative works which of course can only belong to the original copyright > holder, unless otherwise agreed in writing, remains in full force and is > in no way diminished. Um, actually, no. The GPL is much more firmly grounded in copyright law than most software "licenses", which generally don't sit too comfortably with the first sale doctrine. Copyright law, as its name says, is essentially about who may *copy* some Work, such as a computer program. What is "a single copy" of a piece of software has gotten fuzzy in these days of mirroring file systems, automated backups, network servers, client-side disk cacheing, unified buffer caches, and multi-level processor caches, but copyright law says that you need the copyright holder's permission to copy. The GPL grants you license to copy if, in consideration of such license, you agree to some restrictions on what you do with those copies. The GPL doesn't say much of anything about what you may do with a copy that you already have. (There are restrictions in U.S. and Canadian copyright law about translating and modifying a Work, too. But nothing about using it, reverse-engineering it, or whatever other crap various "shrink-wrap" licenses try to pull.) -- -Colin