From: johnston@me.udel.edu (Bill Johnston)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss,talk.philosophy.misc,misc.legal
Subject: Re: Fund raising at the FSF
Date: 8 Jan 93 18:55:03 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <1993Jan8.115714.19103@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>[...]    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.  

OK.  I'll make it even easier.  Here is paragraph 5 of version 1.0
of the GNU General Public License, from the file "COPYING-1.0"
available on prep.ai.mit.edu and other gnu archive sites.

--- begin included text --- 

   We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
 (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
 distribute and/or modify the software.

--- end included text ---

Strictly speaking, this paragraph is contained in the Preamble to 
the license text, which explains how the GPL works.  It is not
part of the GPL itself, which begins after the preamble with the 
words:

 		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
   TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

etc.

What is meant by Paragraph 5 is that the FSF "COPYING" terms have
two essential parts, both of which must be present if their "evil
scheme" ;-) is to work.  The first part is that the software must
be released with an explicit copyright statement such as:

      Copyright (C) 19yy  <name of author>

The second part of the scheme is to attach the license, which
describes the terms under which the copyright owner, "<name of 
author>", permits others to "copy, distribute and/or modify 
the software."

That my interpretation of Paragraph 5 is indeed the one intended
by its author(s) should be obvious after reading the Appendix of 
the file "COPYING", which follows the line 

		     END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

which marks the end of the license proper.

Here is the text of that Appendix to "COPYING 1.0", to be consistent
with Mr. Zeleny's reference to v.1.0.  A similar Appendix is present in 
"COPYING-2.0", which I posted earlier.  It should be readily apparent
that the Appendix describes a procedure by which an author/owner can
apply the terms of the GPL to work copyrighted in his or her name.

--- begin included text ---

	Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

  If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
possible use to humanity, the best way to achieve this is to make it
free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
terms.

  To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest to
attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey
the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the
"copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

    <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
    Copyright (C) 19yy  <name of author>

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
    any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:

    Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19xx name of author
    Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
    This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
appropriate parts of the General Public License.  Of course, the
commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show
c'; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your
program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary.  Here a sample; alter the names:

  Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the
  program `Gnomovision' (a program to direct compilers to make passes
  at assemblers) written by James Hacker.

  <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
  Ty Coon, President of Vice

That's all there is to it!

--- end included text ---

Returning to the article posted by Mr. Zeleny:

MZ:
>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.

The answer, precisely, is "none".

To paraphrase two earlier bits from Mr. Zeleny's contribution
to this discussion:

 1)  Now would be a good time for Mr. Zeleny to admit his error.

 2)  Are you going to be a man or a mouse about it, Mr. Zeleny?

Please note that I am not accusing you Mr. Zeleny of "prevaricating" 
in repeatedly making false statements about the GPL;  I merely
point out his error.  Readers can draw their own conclusions.
-- 
-- Bill Johnston (johnston@me.udel.edu)
-- 38 Chambers Street; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949