Re: [Nolug] RMS vs Cisco (Round 1 *ding*ding*)

From: Mark A. Hershberger <mah_at_everybody.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:11:20 -0500
Message-ID: <87tz95ci6v.fsf@everybody.org>

"B. Estrade" <estrabd@gmail.com> writes:

> So what law is this again?

Copyright law as well as contract law. Copyright gives the author
control over his own work. The GPL license contains a contract that you
enter into when you distribute modified GPLed software. Without a
license, you cannot modify or distribute copyrighted software that you
do not own. It doesn't matter if you can see the source or not.

> This is what liberal legal types do in order to create what they think
> is the idea world - they try to legislate it.

To which Ron rightly replied:

> No, that the social conservative's way.

RMS is more politically conservative than you would suspect. I have
been genuinely surprised at some of the viewpoints he holds.

The GPL does not force itself upon anyone else's work without their
consent. That we are even talking about the GPL today is testament to
the programmers who distribute their original software packages under
the license.

Had it been RMS's intent to change copyright law, he would have lobbied
the legislature to make changes in the law. He would have tried to have
cases prosecuted to change how copyright was (in the early 1980s, when
he created the GPL) newly applied to computer software.

Instead of attempting to change the law, he rolled up his sleeves and
began coding his own set of tools which he licensed under the GPL.

The GPL relied on the way software copyright and licensing was
interpretted and applied — without changing the current laws or legal
system.

    When the federal courts interpreted the Copyright Act to give
    computer programs the same copyright status as literary works,
    companies continued to license their products to avoid transfer of
    their copyright to the end user via the doctrine of first sale.
         — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright

It was only after the copyright status of software had been decided in
this way that RMS started to work on the GPL.

Mark.
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