From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
Date: 8 Jan 93 16:57:13 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <FRIEDMAN.93Jan8024448@nutrimat.gnu.ai.mit.edu> 
friedman@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Noah Friedman) writes:

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

NF:
>[ argument about whether the owner of a program can make multiple copies
>  with different copyright and license agreements elided ]

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.  

NF:
>Mikhail, regardless of what you *think* the GPL intends, that's not what it
>actually says or implies.  The GPL can't supercede an owner's rights in
>this fashion.  The law doesn't permit that.

The law does not permit selling products without warranty of any kind.
That does not stop the FSF from including its "NO WARRANTY" clause in
the GPL.  With regard to the ownership issue, my reference is to the
Paragraph 5 of the Version 1, as was discussed in the preceding article;
I will not bother pointing it out in the text posted on the net.  The
question is precisely, to what extent the GPL attempts to supersede the
legal ownership rights attached to the copyright; I shall not presume to
judge the extent of its success in this attempt.

NF:
>Software authors can and *do* distribute identical versions of their
>programs with different licensing terms (including the GPL), and it's
>perfectly legitimate.

Again, legitimacy can only be decided by the courts.  I see such actions
contradict the letter of the GPL.

NF:
>I've become confused about exactly what you mean when you speak of
>ownership.  Lately I've come to believe you are referring to property in
>some philosophical sense, not in a legal one, because legally we do not own
>any piece of software for which no explicit and written copyright
>assignment has been made.  I would appreciate it if you would clarify.

I think that you are right from the legal standpoint; however please
observe that copyright is an exclusive right to production, publication,
and distribution, whereas the GPL purports to exercise absolute control
over all of these activities in the aforementioned passage.  Do you see
the contradiction?

In this instance, my working definition of ownership is simply the right
to dispose of the object in question as one sees fit.  Two caveats are
in order.  With respect to programs, the object is possessed and used as
the token, but owned (and, presumably, licensed) as the type, if not the
algorithm (how long before the FSF patents its software?).  Furthermore,
the legal notion of ownership may be qualified in certain ways (witness
the instance of owning an art object, which does not imply the right to
destroy it), but surely such qualifications may reach a point at which
it no longer makes any sense.  Do you expect rationality from legal
reasoning?

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Les beaulx bastisseurs nouveaulx de pierres mortes ne sont escriptz
en mon livre de vie.  Je ne bastis que pierres vives: ce sont hommes."
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss