Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Adam McKenna writes:

> On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 03:07:05PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote:
> > Adam McKenna writes:
> > 
> > > On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 02:29:18PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote:
> > > > So is it acceptable for the GFDL to prohibit me from performing these
> > > > two operations:
> > > > 
> > > >   cp some-gfdl-licensed-document.txt ~/local-copy.txt
> > > >   chmod 0700 ~/local-copy.txt
> > > 
> > > How do those two operations prevent you from making further copies of the
> > > file and distributing them?
> > 
> > Prevent me, as the file owner?  They don't.  However, they do obstruct
> > or control the further reading and copying of the work.
> 
> Not in the context of copyright law, as Raul already pointed out.

I still have no idea what he meant by that.

> Carrying your argument even further, you could say that a copy that rests on
> any controlled-access machine would also violate the license (which would
> mean, basically, every copy).  That doesn't make sense.  The requirement is
> that people who obtain copies of the file are not, themselves, obstructed 
> from further distribution.

I think the position you describe is conceivable, even if it is
non-free.  Richard Stallman was well-known to have shared his account
password in previous times; it does not seem impossible that he (or
the FSF) would advocate that users do similar things.

If the license does not mean what it says, perhaps it should be
rewritten rather than accepted.

Michael Poole