Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
Thu Jul 24 04:34:44 UTC 2008
Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> But you must give up your freedom and rights or you are unable to
>> participate in distributing these things as part of a work that
>> contains any GPL-covered material.
>
> The "or" denounces your syllogism. The "must" is inappropriate when
> there's an alternative.
The alternative is not sharing any GPL-encumbered code at all. Do you
consider that a reasonable alternative?
> As explained above, because of copyright law, you end up without that
> freedom and right by default, even though you should have them.
You've inserted a radical political opinion there... You are entitled
to have it, of course.
> The
> GPL respects the freedom to (re)distribute the program that you're
> entitled to,
Only if you choose the alternative of giving up your own rights.
> restoring your right to do that which copyright law took
> away, but not restoring your power to control how others can use the
> work that you're using to derive another work you want to distribute.
I don't have a lot of power. Why should I give up any in order to share
code?
> The GPL doesn't require you to give up anything.
It requires you to give up the ability to share anything but
GPL-encumbered parts in the covered work. And to immorally take away
that same ability to others who might contribute to it.
> It only restores
> some of your rights that copyright law took away, so that essential
> freedoms are respected for you and for every other user.
Requiring contributors to give up their rights is not respecting
anyone's freedom.
>> But the point is that you also cannot impose fewer restrictions,
>
> 1. a grant of rights cannot possibly impose restrictions to whatever
> you could do before you received those rights. It's a grant, so it
> adds. It's not a contract, so it can't take away.
Per wikipedia, there are locations where is a difference between a
license and a contract and locations where a license is treated the same
as a contract. I won't pretend to know the difference except that it
means you are wrong in at least some places.
> 2. you can grant additional permissions as to any part of the whole,
> if you're the copyright holder for that part. Nothing whatsoever
> stops you from doing that: not copyright law, not any copyright
> license.
You could make it available separately under a different or multiple
licenses but as part of a combined work the GPL says its own terms must
apply to all components of the work when any part needs acceptance of
the GPL to copy/modify/distribute.
>> Please point out any exception you can find to section 2b.
>
> Here:
>
> * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
> * are met:
> * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
> * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
> * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
> * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
> * 3. [rescinded 22 July 1999]
> * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
> * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
> * without specific prior written permission.
>
> additional permissions on top of those granted by the GPL. No matter
> what the GPL says, you still have the permissions above as to any file
> in which these permissions are written down.
But it doesn't matter that someone else has given you permission to copy
a part under different terms if you've agreed not to. At least not in
the locations where a license is treated like a contract. Or if you are
used to honoring your agreements.
> What makes you think they're revoked just because the whole is under
> the GPL?
Because you gave up the choice to use any other terms on a component
when you agreed to the GPL demand covering the work as a whole. You
agreed that "These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole."
Without that agreement you are restricted from distributing anything
covered by the GPL.
> Only your flawed theory that the GPL imposes restrictions
> that would somehow take away rights you had or received with the
> program. Show what part of the GPL says "you give up rights you had
> before", or that "imposes restrictions", or hire a lawyer to explain
> this to you.
It is your agreement to its terms that impose these restrictions. Or
you have the copyright restrictions instead.
> Note: "you may do X as long as Y" is not a restriction, it's a grant.
> "you may not do Z under this license" is not a restriction, it's a
> statement of fact, if doing Z requires permission from the copyright
> holder.
It's at least equivalent to a requirement to pay for a copy. I might be
able to afford to pay some reasonable amount for a license, but I don't
have much power and can't afford to give any up - and I consider it
wrong to demand that from anyone else.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com
More information about the users
mailing list