Hi
On Mon, 09 Apr 2001, LinuxLand / Hans-Jörg Ehren wrote:
> That copyright only reflects to packaging, artwork etc. The content
> ist still free software, no question.
That sounds OK.
> > Another strange thing is the impressum in the manual shipped with
> > the CDs, saying:
> >
> > The content of this work stands under the GNU General Public
> > License (see appendix) and is freely available. All other
> > rights reseved, also those of photo-mechanic reproduction and
> > storing in electronic media.
>
> The same applies as above.
Does this mean that only the cover pictures must not be
photo-mechanically reproduced or stored in electronic media?
> Unfortunately publishers has to copyright their products for
> protection against misuse.
What do you consider "misuse"?
> German copyright enables us to do so,
> whatever the content is or comes from.
In Germany, there is no law called "copyright law", but several
other, that together do almost the same, e.g. "creators rights law"
(Urheberrechtsgesetz) or "publishers rights law" (Verlagsrecht).
I cannot find any clue that publishers can claim rights based on the
creators rights law. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Further, I also cannot find anything like that in the publishers
rights law. As I understand it, it only describes how a contract
between an author and a publisher has to look like. E.g. the
publisher has to get exclusive rights, which is not the case, when
someone has only non-exclusive rights (by the GPL) on making copies,
and publishes on his own initiative.
However, IANAL. I just try to understand how these things work.
BTW: I wonder why the book comes without it's source code. A disk
containig the sources would possibly be too complicated to include
into the book, but a written offer or download location printed into
the book should be no problem.
Also, I wonder why the post script version of the book, included on
the LinuxLand CD 1, is not also available as TeX sources.
Thanks for your answer.
Bye,
Thomas
}:o{#
