Re: Stallman Admits to Copyright Infringement
It is essentially irrelevant from Debian's perspective what Stallman
thinks. Debian is concerned with what the GPL actually says, and the
meaning it has acquired in the community. As far as I know, the GPL has
never been interpreted by a court, but in the event that this had to
happen one of the most important principles which would guide the court in
construing the actual language is what the community thinks it means.
In this regard, Stallman is entitled to his opinion, just as anyone else
is entitled to theirs. However, once the GPL is committed to writing and
becomes the basis for interactions among people, then it has legal
significance only insofar as it expresses what those people mean to agree
upon when they refer to it. If Stallman happened to be a raging Marxist,
for example, it would not logically follow that the people who are using
his GPL are themselves thinking in terms of Marxist ideology.
Stallamm is not the GPL and the GPL is not Stallman.
-- Mike
On 2000-05-16 at 01:44 -0500, Paul Serice wrote:
> It bothers me to no end. I would like to see Debian take active
> measures to distance itself from these statements.
>
> Unless you are one of the Debian anarchists, I think it will be
> eye-opening to see just how little Stallman respects the rights of
> others. I know it was for me.
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