matt@group-w.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) (05/26/90)
Dan whines --excuse me, claims-- that I don't quote enough. The only reason he can imagine for not quoting myself and him again and again is obfuscation. I have a reason: saving everyone's time and disk. The news-reader *I* use lets me back up along the "references" line with a single keystroke. Dan must not have as good a news-reader. I won't try to draw inferences from the fact that the news-reader I use is under a GPL-variant. But I still wonder why a guy like Dan, who thinks we all ought to go read great slabs of law, thinks we can't be bothered to look back an article or two and see who really said what? I have another reason, too: It can far more deceptive to selectively quote than not to quote at all. Now down to cases, so to speak. Dan again wallops us with his ignorance of uunet and similar services. He thinks he knows exactly what they do, but he doesn't. Shall we tell him? Why not ... Dan, UUNET has archives. If you subscribe, you can download stuff from their archives. Do they archive everything, without regard to content? They do not. So your argument on that point falls to the ground. As for not examining your license on filterfile, squeeze, or travesty, sorry, chum, but I never saved those programs. I guess they didn't grab my eye as being useful. When you were telling us by mail how awful GPL was, why didn't you just include your license then? On the next item, I'm going to give in and play it Dan's way, with quotes. Matt: ) > 2. The GPL says (paraphrased) "You may not distribute this except ) > according to certain terms." I asked Dan, didn't his own copyright ) > contain a like condition? ) Dan: ) The answer is obviously yes, as is true for anything that's not public ) domain. However, you never asked that silly question in this thread. ) Again you're failing to quote what I said (or what you said!), and so ) you're accidentally or intentionally misleading the reader. What we are referring to (Matt, May 4): } GPL section 4 begins: } } 4. You may not copy, sublicense, distribute or transfer GNU Emacs } except as expressly provided under this License Agreement. } } Is this a restriction which you do not make on your own work? If so, } then we can ignore your terms completely, can't we? I leave it to the two or three remaining readers of this thread to make up their minds whether I asked "that silly question" and whether I am "accidentally or intentionally misleading the reader." ) > o No rights to the recipient except those explicitly granted. Dan keeps going around in circles about this. Dan, please name for us one right that a recipient of "auth" has with respect to "auth", which is not explicitly granted. Just one. Nothing silly like "the right to print it on rye bread and feed it to ducks," please, Just one relevant, significant right. I thank Dan for outlining the reasoning behind his claim of unenforceability of the GPL, although I note for the record his acknowledgment that the claim is not proven. I wonder, is anyone distributing code in violation of the GPL? If not, then the license is as good as enforced. If someone is, the argument may soon be settled. ________________________________________________________ Matt Crawford matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu
brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (05/28/90)
Quick summary: 1. Matt blabbers on in his ignorance of what uunet does.
2. Matt once again confuses the copyright limitations on my programs
with the GPL Alternative. 3. Matt once again fails to observe that the
GPL restricts not just distribution rights---like any limitation of
copyright---but also all copying rights, sublicensing rights, and
transfer rights. He digs his hole deeper along the same lines.
Summary: 1. Matt claimed that uunet's distribution of my packages was in
violation of my copyright. I pointed out that if this were true, then
uunet would be violating the copyright on every article; and that it
isn't true in the first place, because copyright law explicitly allows
such forwarding. Matt repeatedly talked about my ``ignorance'' of what
uunet does. Now he says that they don't archive everything---but we're
talking about comp.sources.unix, which *is* fully archived.
2. Matt confused the copyright limitations on my programs with my GPL
Alternative, which I mentioned a few times in e-mail and then posted to
alt.sources. I reminded him of the difference. He confused them again. I
again reminded him of the difference. Now he's confusing them again. How
thick.
3. According to Matt, I told users of my programs ``No rights to the
recipient except those explicitly granted.'' I found this accusation
offensive and corrected him. He quoted the GPL, which *does* have such a
restriction, and asked if my programs had anything similar. I said no.
Then he changed the quote to ``You may not ****distribute**** this
except according to certain terms'' (emphasis mine). Readers take note:
There is a difference between *distribution* rights
and rights in general.
Details follow.
In article <1040@gargoyle.uchicago.edu> matt@group-w.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) writes:
[ ad hominem attacks deleted---sorry, Matt ]
> Dan, UUNET has archives. If you subscribe, you can download stuff from
> their archives. Do they archive everything, without regard to content?
> They do not. So your argument on that point falls to the ground.
uunet's comp.sources.unix archives are complete. uunet's normal
distribution of comp.sources.unix is complete. Here by ``complete'' I
mean that everything posted to the group is there. My claim (which you
as usual fail to quote) is that this distribution does not infringe upon
the copyrights of any articles that come through.
> When you were telling us by mail how awful GPL
> was, why didn't you just include your license then?
Because (as you have as usual failed to quote) the copyright limitations
on my programs are *different* from the GPL Alternative. Try to get this
through your head.
I'll quote the next bit in full because it shows very clearly how Matt
tries to win by changing the argument.
> Matt:
> ) > 2. The GPL says (paraphrased) "You may not distribute this except
^^^^^^^^^^
> ) > according to certain terms." I asked Dan, didn't his own copyright
> ) > contain a like condition?
> ) Dan:
> ) The answer is obviously yes, as is true for anything that's not public
> ) domain. However, you never asked that silly question in this thread.
> ) Again you're failing to quote what I said (or what you said!), and so
> ) you're accidentally or intentionally misleading the reader.
> What we are referring to (Matt, May 4):
> } GPL section 4 begins:
> } 4. You may not copy, sublicense, distribute or transfer GNU Emacs
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> } except as expressly provided under this License Agreement.
> } Is this a restriction which you do not make on your own work? If so,
> } then we can ignore your terms completely, can't we?
> I leave it to the two or three remaining readers of this thread to make
> up their minds whether I asked "that silly question" and whether I am
> "accidentally or intentionally misleading the reader."
Matt, can't you see the difference between ``distribute'' and ``copy,
sublicense, distribute or transfer''? According to the GPL, you can't
sell your copies of Emacs to a friend. You can't even lend them. You
can't make backup copies of the executables unless, as per section 3,
you either include source in the backups, offer yourself the source, or
include information in the backups about where you got the source.
No, you never asked that silly question, whose answer is ``yes'': you
asked a very different question, whose answer is ``no.'' Yes, my old
copyright restricts distribution, and even certain forms of copying.
It does not restrict sublicensing, transferral, or other ownership
rights.
> ) > o No rights to the recipient except those explicitly granted.
> Dan keeps going around in circles about this. Dan, please name for us
> one right that a recipient of "auth" has with respect to "auth", which
> is not explicitly granted. Just one. Nothing silly like "the right to
> print it on rye bread and feed it to ducks," please, Just one relevant,
> significant right.
The right to make changes to adapt the program to your machine. Is that
relevant and significant enough for you?
(Side point: I thought the recipients would know that they had ownership
rights like that one. Now I understand that this is wrong: after years
of shrink-wrap licenses, people are too used to getting all their rights
explicitly. So my new copyright notice talks about this a bit.)
---Dan