On Friday 15 June 2007 07:45:22 Nicolas Mailhot wrote: > > And, as I've taken the time to explain to you, lacking any clear > > statement, written at the exact same time as the license, a > > statement of > > > intent or spirit cannot have any real legal weight when the text of a > > license is finally decided upon. > > Fortunately the Law recognizes humans are not computers, natural > langage is not unambiguous binary code, so statements of intent *have* > legal value when a legal text is open to interpretations. > > That's why ten-line law paragraphs are published with the hundreds of > pages of parliamentary discussions on them, which the judge will > consider if there's any doubt in his mind.
You've just made my point for me. Those "Hundreds of pages of parliamentary discussions" are *exactly* because the intent of the law is being made *clear* at the same time the law is being written. If the GPL is intended to cover situation like tivoization it isn't made clear by the preamble at all - and the fact that the GPL, in version 2, at least, *specifically* limits its scope to *THREE* "activities" also creates a problem for your argument. To quote: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope." To try and claim that it is the *INTENT* or the *SPIRIT* of a piece of legal text that contains such specific limiting text is idiotic. I may not be a lawyer - hell, I may not have a degree of any kind - but I do know that a clear and unambiguous statement like that can't be argued to mean anything different *without* twisting the meaning of - or giving extra meaning to - some of the words. DRH -- Dialup is like pissing through a pipette. Slow and excruciatingly painful. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
