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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