Re: Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[Alexandre Oliva <aoliva redhat com>]

On Jun 20, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell gmail com> wrote:

> You specifically have the right, in the US, at least, to make
> changes that are "an essential step in the utilization of the
> computer program".

Indeed, there are such things as fair use and exceptions to
copyright.  We've already covered this.

> Which turns out to include adding improvements you need.

> http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2005/20051107.asp

That's quite interesting.  It's a far cry from the Free Software
Definition's freedom #1, but no doubt this is another positive step
from US courts.

> And the court noted that no damage was done to the copyright holder by
> someone else modifying their own copy of a work.

... because the copy was only for internal use.  Quite unrelated with
the original points of this debate, that's all about distribution.

But no doubt it's a good thing.  This is a reasoning that finds
support in the original rationale for copyrights, but the fact that
they have to resort to contortions such as thinking of "damage" shows
how far behind the original rationale was left :-(

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva {lsd ic unicamp br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva {redhat com, gcc.gnu.org}