On Fri, Jan 22, 1999 at 01:29:51PM -0500, Raul Miller wrote: > Bruce Perens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > 3) Is it actually possible for a license (as opposed to a signed contract) > > > to restrict use? My understanding was that copyright law was all about > > > copying. > > > > See the GPL language on this - something like "you haven't signed this > > contract, but you have no other license to copy or use the software.". > > > > IMO you can grant rights while restricting other rights that the user > > would have had _without your grant_. They have the choice of accepting > > your contract or not. > > They've not written their license in this fashion -- it's perfectly > legal to distribute a copy of the Zope editor to someone without charge > (without a contract). So the recipient of such a copy is not bound by any > such additional contract. > > The copyright license is still relevant if the recipient wishes to make > copies of the Zope editor, but that's not the issue we're talking about. > > [This is why we don't need a special "no button" clause in the DFSG -- > such clauses are not legally binding. We may want to add a more general > clause, however, to reject licenses which claim rights which don't belong > to the copyright holder.]
Maybe we should add a line to the DFSG similar to: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification must not be covered by the license." I am not sure how much licenses we consider free would break, but it would be worth investigating. Furthermore, we could always add exceptions. Marcus -- "Rhubarb is no Egyptian god." Debian GNU/Linux finger brinkmd@ Marcus Brinkmann http://www.debian.org master.debian.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] for public PGP Key http://homepage.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/Marcus.Brinkmann/ PGP Key ID 36E7CD09
