🚀 go-pugleaf

   Date: 20 Mar 1992 22:12:41 GMT
   From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)

   In article <GUMBY.92Mar20054947@Cygnus.COM> gumby@Cygnus.COM (David V. Wallace) writes:
   >   Date: 16 Mar 92 12:07:58 GMT
   >   From: neuhaus@vier.informatik.uni-kl.de (Stephan Neuhaus (HiWi Mattern))
   >
   >   The Question:  May I modify the GPL to suit my needs?
   >
   >You can write your own license to say whan you want, and in fact you
   >could use the GNU GPL as an example, but you couldn't call the result
   >the GNU General Public License.

   But if he were to write his own license by modifying the GPL, wouldn't it
   be a derivative work of the GPL, and hence convered by its restriction
   against copying with modifications?  And unless the FSF has trademarked
   "GNU General Public License", what is there preventing him from using that
   name (I suppose he could get into trouble if he tried to use his version of
   the license to defraud someone)?

I said "as an example" not "as a starting point."  I'm not interested
in splitting hairs as to where one leaves off and the other starts.
I haven't the faintest idea whetyer the GPL is itself covered by its
own terms (I suppose eacy copy included with a program is, but a copy
alone is not?  Who cares?)

I agree the trademark issue is a problem, but apparently not everybody
sees trademarks as pro-consumer.