Re: Results for Debian's Position on the GFDL
On Fri, Mar 17, 2006 at 03:41:30PM -0500, Michael Poole wrote:
> Adam McKenna writes:
> > > 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.
What he meant was, the operations you describe are not operations that
prevent users who already have a copy of the document from exercising their
rights as granted by the license and copyright law.
He's essentially saying that what you are describing is outside of the scope
of the license. A license sets forth terms under which something can be
copied. If a user is not distributing the document, he doesn't need to
comply with the terms.
> 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.
Nothing's impossible, but it's unlikely that someone would put a clause in a
license that had a net effect of requiring that all computer security be done
away with. (That is, if he actually expected anyone to use the license,
anyway).
> If the license does not mean what it says, perhaps it should be
> rewritten rather than accepted.
I agree with that general sentiment, but not that it's a problem in this
case.
--Adam
--
Adam McKenna <adam@debian.org> <adam@flounder.net>
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