Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?

[Les Mikesell]

Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Jul 21, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> 
>>>> but it's a one way trip and that copy of such code no longer has its
>>>> original license terms.
> 
>>> Can you back this up?  All the evidence I've got suggests the exact
>>> opposite.
> 
>> I thought you had just agreed with this in another posting.
> 
> No, I first said it wouldn't make sense for an author to try to
> enforce something that is permitted by the license s/he granted.
> Then, in another posting, you proposed the idea above and asked for
> confirmation, and then I responded explaining why I believe the exact
> opposite holds, and that you probably thought what you did because of
> your mistaken understanding as to how the GPL works.

Practically speaking I follow your argument that the covered work could 
be treated as though explicitly dual-licensed - and kept separate. 
However, I still don't see how the GPL requirements are technically 
removed once you've accepted the license that applies them to any 
covered component of a work.  Aren't you obligated by accepting this 
license to observe its terms which explicitly extend to the work-as-a-whole?

>> Of course the original copies of works covered by less restrictive
>> licenses would remain available
> 
> That's not what I'm talking about.  Please re-read the message in
> which you thought I agreed with the above, and follow up if you need
> clarification on my position.

Please do explain how you can accept a license, then subsequently ignore 
the terms.  If you aren't redistributing any part under the GPL, you 
might ignore the license since you don't have to accept it in that case.

>>>> Some people seem to think the story has changed recently,
> 
>>> On both sides :-)  (for such large values of recently as 1995+ :-)
> 
>> I generally don't expect the truth to vary from day to day on this
>> sort of issue, even for some moderately large number of days.
> 
> And yet you get the impression that Linus' statement you cited, from
> back in 1995, changed the story in any way.

No, I always understood the fact that modules are not necessarily 
derived works and they simply 'use' the system interface as permitted by 
the Linux license.  Those quotes from Linux and Eben Moglen just removed 
any possible doubt.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com