From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
Date: 10 Jan 93 17:56:28 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1imlr5INN2tu@early-bird.think.com> 
barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:

>In article <1993Jan7.230129.19091@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>>That depends on whether the license attaches to the program type or
>>any individual token thereof.  I assume that the former is the case,
>>as the latter does not seem to make any sense.  In any case, your
>>claim that, "as the owner of the work, [you] can make another copy
>>with a different copyright agreement attached", directly contradicts
>>the statement of the GPL, which regulates *all* copying, modification,
>>sublicensing, distribution, or transfer of the licensed program.
>>Since any derivative code is required to be so licensed, and since we
>>have _ex hypothesi_, that your code has been so derived, it appears
>>that you are dead wrong.

BM:
>The simple way to avoid the GPL "virus" problem on your own work is to
>apply the GPL to the copy rather than the original, i.e. write a program
>and make it proprietary, make a copy of it (as the owner, you have this
>right), and slap the GPL on this copy.  Derivatives of the copy must
>inherit the GPL, but derivatives of the original can be subject to any
>terms you wish.

You are begging the question: your scenario will work only if the GPL
attaches to the token.

BM:
>The actual force of the GPL as a true "license" has never actually been
>tested.  I'm not a lawyer, but it looks very much like "shrink-wrap"
>licenses, which many people believe are not really enforceable.  The GPL is
>probably better viewed as a description of the copyright terms; thus, using
>the GPL doesn't remove copyright rights such as the "fair use" doctrine.
>And given this, the terms *do* apply to the token, not the type, since
>copyright applies to expressions not ideas (although with software, the
>line between token and type is fuzzy).

You are very confused.

{\bf A common mode of estimating the amount of matter in an MS.\thinspace
or printed page is to count the number of words.  There will ordinarily be
about twenty {\it the}'s on a page, and of course they count as twenty
words.  In another sense of the word ``word'', however, there is but one
word ``the'' in the English language; and it is impossible that this word
should lie visibly on a page or be heard in any voice, for the reason that
it is not a Single thing or a Single event.  It does not exist; it only
determines things that do exist.  Such a definitely significant Form, I
propose to term a {\it Type.} A single event which happens once and whose
identity is limited to that one happening or a Single object or thing which
is in some single place at any one instant of time, such event or thin
being significant only as occurring just when and where it does, I will
venture to call a {\it Token.}}\footnote{See [Peirce 1935--66]: 4, 537.}

As you can see, there is nothing fuzzy about the distinction.

MZ:
>>The ownership is just what is at issue here.  I have argued that the GPL
>>assigns the ownership to the FSF, superseding any existing copyrights.
>>(Note that I am referring to _de facto_ ownership, as determined by the
>>exclusive right to control the aforementioned activities, and not any
>>official version thereof.  I am not interested in any possibility of _de
>>jure_ ownership, which does not allow you to dispose of the goods as you
>>see fit.)

BM:
>I think this is the crux of the confusion.
>
>If the FSF were the owner of all GPLed programs, then it could *change* the
>terms of the license of any of these programs.  But it can't.  Unless he
>has assigned the rights to another party, the original author is still the
>only one who can set the licensing terms.  The fact that he happens to set
>the same terms as the FSF does doesn't mean that the FSF takes control of
>it.  As someone else pointed out, if the FSF comes out with a GPL version
>3, it doesn't affect programs that are licensed using GPL v2.

According to Paragraph 8 (V1), any of the subsequent revised versions
of the GPL may be selected by the licensee, at his own discretion,
instead of the version specified in the program he is using.

>-- 
>Barry Margolin
>System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.
>
>barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l'esprit des hommes."