Re: Evolution copyright assignment: Storm in a teacup



On Sat, 2004-08-07 at 15:51 +0200, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
> You are trapped into a duality problem, believing that software that can
> be licensed under a proprietary license cannot be free.  If this would
> be the case, the GPL would state so.  It does not.

The GPL does state so. Any derivates distributed must be licensed under
the same terms. That's it's power to keep software Free.

They respect the letter because they don't take your contributions, they
force you to give the rights you have as an author to them, in order to
do what they want with it, including making them available under any
license they feel like, as long as they make at least one Free Software
release of the code.

> If you really want a license that says that it should never be under any
> other license than a free one, you'll have to write such a license.  If
> the GPL really meant to cover this case, it would have said so.  I don't
> believe that the GPL was written by people who "forgot" about copyright.

You must be making some confusion. The GPL's intention is to keep the
software as Free Software, namely under its terms.

This depends on copyright to be effective, so I don't see how you could
take it to mean "forgetting about copyright".

> If you have links to actual verifiable statements on what you call the
> morality of the GPL, and if you believe that the GPL really did want to
> say "it should never be under any other license than free", then back
> that up.

here's backup:

  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
  (go read it, like the copyright assignment you clearly haven't ever
   read it)

  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
  
> Evolution didn't agree with you either.  What makes you correct in your
> interpretation of the GPL, and us wrong ? Feel free to convince us.

If you don't bother to read, at least, documents above plus the
definition of Free Software
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

You can't expect me to read it out aloud for you, or do you? I would
never be able to be so clear as these links.

> In fact, most people will say that it is NOT immoral at all.  People who
> write code are free to do with it what they want.

   http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/freedom-or-power.html


Rui

-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

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