Non FOSS and Fedora

[Geoff Teale]

On Mon, 2004-01-12 at 12:35, Andy Green wrote:
> Even so, someone must get their wallet out to go after these people before it 
> would cause a problem.  Its hard to understand why someone would spend that 
> money and time to protect from redistribution something that is given freely 
> (and is out of date in the case of Acrobat).  So you're correct but surely 
> this isn't the problem.  (Seem to be saying this a lot recently).

The reason they'll get their wallet out is that when you download it (as
the licensed user) you agree to a number of terms that restrict your
usage (like barring reverse engineering and "improper use").  The third
party who is given the software by a friend has not agreed to this terms
of use (and he/she could argue that they were using the software under a
presumed license from their friend) and thus was not bound by the terms
of the agreement between the vendor and the original user.

Now, this is an area in which FOSS has muddied the waters somewhat - in
the old days if a friend gave you copied software you could pretty much
assume that he/she wasn't doing so within the bounds of licensed usage
of that software.  Now we have a situation where some software is
copyrighted and licensed under restricted terms and other software is
copyrighted and licensed under copyleft type terms and the only way to
tell is to read a license properly.  

All of this makes large, slow moving corporations nervous, they don't
like an environment where people routinely make and distribute copies of
copyright material (because even GPL relies on copyright!), they assume
that people who do so will pirate software and music and films without
regard.

Conversely it is my experience that FOSS people are unusually careful
about licenses - a lot of the the reason people use Free Software for is
to work in the way they want to and to do so legally!
-- 
GJT 
gteale at cmedltd.com 

She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to.
		-- Gypsy Rose Lee