Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?
Rui Miguel Silva Seabra
rms at 1407.org
Wed Jul 23 06:54:37 UTC 2008
On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 06:30:14PM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
>>
>>> The terms of a license have nothing to do with copyright law. You
>>> can agree to anything in a license as long as it isn't actually
>>> illegal. An exclusion of copyright rules is simply what you get in
>>> return.
>>
>> With the GNU GPL you don't have to agree with anything. It is an
>> unilateral grant of rights as long as you fulfill some obligations when
>> you distribute pristine, modified or derived copies.
>
> If you don't agree to their terms you don't have the freedom to
> redistribute.
You don't have that freedom because *copyright* restricts you.
>> If you don't abide with those obligations, you don't have the permission
>> to distribute pristine, modified or derived copies because copyright
^^^^^^^^^
>> restricts it so.
>
> Exactly, the license is very restrictive.
No, copyright is.
>>> Even though they can't exactly force you to apply their terms to
>>> other people's work, it is as close as you can get. They withhold
>>> your freedom to redistribute until you have agreed to their terms -
>>> and in the GPL case these must apply to all other combined work.
>>
>> Yes they can. Very simply it's the quid-pro-quod required of you in
>> order for you to distribute pristine, modified or derived copies.
>
> Is there even a name for quid-pro-quo when it attempts to involve third
> parties in the way the GPL interferes with combining existing works with
> different terms?
It doesn't attempt, it's the conditions set before you. If you don't
like them you get what copyright says, and copyright is *very*
restrictive.
Of course there's another way: write your own code.
Rui
--
Umlaut Zebra über alles!
Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 58th day of Confusion in the YOLD 3174
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?
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