On 2/14/06, John Goerzen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > What purpose do you feel calling a person "blind" or an "idiot" serves? > I don't think you are contributing anything to this discussion.
How about this: http://www.linuxworld.com/story/43614.htm ("I am an Adjunct Professor at Duquesne University School of Law teaching upper-level intellectual property law...") I mean read it now (and try not to die... very high degree of ROFL). And it's not a hoax. http://www.santanderlaw.com/Nav%20Bar/Articles.htm ----- "Practicing Law Without a License," (a rebuttal of a non-lawyer's attack on software open source General Public License validity issues), LinuxWorld, February 6, 2004. ----- Done with it? Now turn to http://www.santanderlaw.com/Files/SCO%2520Litigation%2520Case%2520Study.pdf ---- When Linux is distributed under the GPL, the distributor (if it has contributed to the code base) is the licensor and is sublicensing code from other authors under the authority of the GPL to the user-licensee. The result is that a large number of contributors to the Linux kernel code are licensors (as well as licensees) under the GPL and have the ability to enforce their contractual rights under the GPL just as any other licensor would. ---- Contractual rights? User-licensee? GPLv3: 9.[5] Not a Contract. (Rationale: Section 9 revises the corresponding section in GPLv2 in various ways to make the provision clearer.) You are not required to accept this License in order to receive a copy of the Program. Hmmmmmmm. It's just mind boggling how many different legal faces the GPL possesses in Prof. Celia's mind. Ranging from unilateral-permission-not-a-contract to just-like-normal-eula. Prof. Celia must be truly excited by such "legal chameleon". [...] > > "This right to exclude implies an equally large power to license--that > > is, to grant permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. > > Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain > > within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, > > but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the > > license permits." > > That statement, if true, would appear to be valid only in 49 of the > United States United Sates? Lee Hollaar the author of http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise2.html (I mean his treatise, not the Foreword written by the Chief Judge and the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee) commented on that statement. Here's what Lee Hollaar who worked with the Chief Judge and the Chief Intellectual Property Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Internet, copyright, and patent issues as a Committee Fellow said regarding truthfulness of that statement: http://groups.google.com/group/misc.int-property/msg/4d2438aa5d80f803 ------ In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >"Licenses are not contracts: the work's user is obliged to remain >within the bounds of the license not because she voluntarily promised, >but because she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the >license permits." [quoting Eben Moglen] That might be true IF "she doesn't have any right to act at all except as the license permits." But as I have pointed out here and in my comments to the FSF regarding the new GPLv3, that is not the case. United States copyright law provides a number of exceptions to the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, including "first sale" as covered in 17 U.S.C. 109 and the right in 17 U.S.C. 117 of the owner of a copy of a computer to reproduce or adapt it if necessary to use it. The convenient redefinition of things in the GPL reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. ------ regards, alexander.
