On Sun, Mar 02, 2003 at 08:47:29PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote:
> You are not allowed to remove the copyright statement from a source
> file.
To do so would be copyright infringment in most jurisdictions, and it is
not the purpose of the DFSG to encourage copyright infringement.
> You are not allowed to remove the code which announces the license on
> a GPL'ed program.
Not true. According to (2)(c) of version 2 of the GNU GPL, the only
"code which announces" anything that you're not allowed to remove is the
copyright notice and the warranty disclaimer.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
[...]
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
Strictly interpreted[1], that does not include a statement of the
license terms, or a reference to same.
If you would refrain from making reckless statements, conversation with
you would likely be much more productive.
[1] A "copyright notice" is a notice of copyright. For example:
Copyright 1977 Festrunk Brothers, Inc.
...no more and no less.
--
G. Branden Robinson | I have a truly elegant proof of the
Debian GNU/Linux | above, but it is too long to fit
branden@debian.org | into this .signature file.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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