🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 30 Jan 2000 06:23:47 GMT, Richard <2prometheus@home.com> wrote:
>Richard Tobin wrote:
>
>> Nonsense.  The requirement to provide source is a requirement on
>> licencees, and the author is not a licencee.  Even for licencees, the
>> requirement to provide source applies to those distributing it, and I
>> challenge you to demonstrate that having someone break in to your
>> computer counts legally as distribution.
>
>Just because my argument is incorrect (based on a faulty assumption
>that you must be licensed in order to use software) doesn't mean your
>counter-argument is correct.
>
>A right you give someone is an obligation /you/ take towards them.
>So when a programmer places code under the GPL and thereby
>grants people the right to source code, the author himself is bound
>by the clauses of the GPL.

No he is not.

The author can release a binary and license it under the GPL. He is allowed
to do that since he owns it and thus does not need to obey the license in
order to copy and distribute it.

Of course whomever, he distributes the binary to, can't do anything with
it since to do so would be to violate the license which gives them 
permission to do it.

The author is not bound by the GPL. The author hasn't agreed to a license,
he doesn't need one, he owns the copyright.

>
>Now, *assuming* the GPL were required in order to /use/ software,
>then even if someone stole the software from you, you would still
>be bound to give them the source. The reason is because distribution
>is distribution, whether knowing or unknowing, coerced or uncoerced,
>deliberate or accidental. The counter-argument to this is to point
>out that the nominal distributor gains an obligation (the GPL) from
>someone /else's/ illegal actions. But *if* the GPL is required to even
>use the software, then the nominal distributor doesn't gain any /new/
>obligations; he must've had those obligations already just to be able
>to use the software. And if he had the software on his computer
>without using it then he was gratuitously running a risk of being
>coerced into becoming a distributor and so he still helped in his
>own downfall (ie, he implicitly accepted the obligations of the GPL
>just by having the software on his computer for no apparent reason).

The GPL can not force you to do something. You distributed it and broke
the license, hence your rights are terminated (clause 4)

Doesn't change your ability to use it though.

And I can't see why you can't just download the thing again and get a
brand new fresh unterminated license...

>
>The reasoning is quite tight and quite valid, it's just based on an
>incorrect assumption.

Since the GPL itself states:

	Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
	covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act
	of running the Program is not restricted...

That really shouldn't need to be stated.

-- 
Sam

Perl is the Cliff Notes of Unix.
	--Tom Christiansen