Is anybody else noticing that we are getting what seems to be contradictory information about the GPL license?
Step 1: You can. Step 2: No, you can't. Step 3. Yes, you can. Step 4. Go-To Step 2.
You get the same kind of responses from people talking about copyright law in other contexts.
...I have never been a fan of the GPL. I am a strong believer in copyright, intellectual property, and property rights. I believe the USA founding fathers knew what they were doing when they established the Copyright Office. Was it specified in the Constitution?
GPL works are copyrighted. GPL is a license which does nothing against copyrights. If you have heard anything contrary to that, you have heard false rumors.
I tend to feel the net result of Richard Stallman's well intended "copyleft" is anti-intellectual.
Really? What can you learn from the source code for Windows? Probably nothing, unless you are one of the few that are allowed to see it, or you decide to violate their license and reverse engineer it.
While we remain on "this side", our fallen natures seems to call for copyright rather than copyleft.
No one is taking copyright away. In fact it gets stronger all the time. Copyleft is not "rather than" it is in addition to. Again, all copyleft works are copyrighted. Copyright is the law giving the copyright holder the power to restricted copying. Copyleft, is the copyright holder granting license to others to use and copy under certain conditions the copyright law would otherwise not grant. There is nothing special about that, all licenses work that way.
I would probably prefer to release LcdBible and the InVerse Scripture memorization freeware to the Public Domain than use the GPL as it seems to be understood on The SWORD Project.
I am a big fan of the PD. There are still problems though. You realize that you won't be able to use any copyrighted code, GPL or otherwise, without getting the needed permission to release them to the PD. You also still won't be able to combine or distribute your code with copyrighted libraries, GPL or otherwise, or other kinds of copyrighted works, unless you get the needed permissions to do so. And "personal use" is not always a defence against copyright violation claims.
Jerry
_______________________________________________ sword-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
