Re: OSD && DFSG - different purposes

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

David Turner <novalis@novalis.org> writes:

> On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 13:50, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> > > The modified software can be modified by the recipient only if he
> > > tellss the public at large.  This is the same condition.
> > 
> > So you are now saying that the license imposes a restriction on
> > modification even if I don't distribute anything at all?  That makes
> > it beyond the power of copyright law at all, it seems to me.
> 
> Let me point you to the plain language of 17 USC?  I am quoting for you
> the relevant section of 106:
> 
> "(2)  to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;"
> 
> Note that it does not say:
> 
> "(2)  to dsitribute derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;"
> 
> My only consolation in this farce is that Nelson is equally wrong when
> he replies to you claiming the GPL is a contract.

Thank you for the correction.

What I should say is that Russell would like it to be that the license
imposes a condition on the making of a modification, not the
distribution, and therefore the distribution is under the same terms
whether modified or not.

What he disregards is that the license itself, by its very wording,
explicitly says that the restriction attaches to the *distribution of
modified versions*, and not to the making of modifications themselves.

Thomas