Re: PHPNuke license
On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 10:10:45PM -0800, Walter Landry wrote:
> Simon Law <sfllaw@engmail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 09:24:41PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > On Sat, Mar 01, 2003 at 09:51:18PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
> > > > Agreed. In particular, in such a hybrid licence, the word "this
> > > > License" in the GPL text would naturally be taken to refer to the
> > > > entire hybrid rather than just to the GPL.
> > >
> > > I don't think the FSF intends the GNU GPL license text to be interpreted
> > > that way. (I could be wrong, though...)
> >
> > One of the strong hints that the GNU GPL is not meant to be part
> > of a hybrid license with additional restrictions appears right at the top.
> >
> > Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> > 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA
> >
> > Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
> > of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
> >
> > Everyone who generates a "cut-and-paste" license out of the GNU
> > GPL is plagerising, and violating copyright law. So actually editing
> > the GPL to include more explicit terms is right out.
>
> Maybe I'm remembering something completely wrong, but I thought that
> legal contracts in the US were not copyrightable.
To my untrained eyes, they appear to be literary works, which
contain significant amounts of original authorship. (The GNU GPL is
particularly clever in its wording.)
Simon
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