On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 03:57:50PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote: > Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 03:10:25PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote: > > > I think that once we get into this kind of large scale copying, > > > requiring people to offer machine readable source is not too onerous. > > > Otherwise, it isn't really a copyleft anymore. > > > > And very small-scale copying is difficult to audit anyway. So a > > GPL-style requirement shouldn't be a problem, then? > > I think that Andrew Suffield and others are looking for some legal > assurance that small-scale copying is OK. I'm sure they appreciate > the realities of enforcement as well as you or I. Yes, but it's probably too difficult to express this exception in legal terms. The GNU GPL doesn't, while RMS is on record as saying that the FSF doesn't care about small-scale file swapping among private individuals[1], but rather about systematic infringement. If this issue is too hard for the GPL to wrestle with I suggest we not do so either, though I do have a "Fair Use Acklowledgement" clause in mind that I'd like to work into our license, which *may* serve as the type of reassurance that Mr. Suffield is looking for. Something like: * No condition of this license shall be construed in such a way as to challenge or prohibit reverse-engineering or any Fair Use exception to copyright law. [1] Sigh; now that I've claimed he said that, I'll need to go find the reference. It's in the archives of this list somewhere. -- G. Branden Robinson | The software said it required Debian GNU/Linux | Windows 3.1 or better, so I branden@debian.org | installed Linux. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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