On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 02:08:26AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Don Armstrong <don@donarmstrong.com> > > > You're ignoring 2 itself: > > > 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:[4] > > Which is ambiguous in itself. It can either mean > > You may modify provided blah, AND you may copy provided blah. > > or > > You may [modify and then copy] provided blah. > > Such are the wonders of natural language. I'd like to go on record as requesting that the FSF clarify this in future versions of the GNU GPL, such that only distribution of modifications are limited by the license, not modification in and of itself. Imposing constraints on simple modification[1] is of questionable utility given the difficulty of enforcement, to say nothing of potential clashes with the principles of Fair Use, and the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of privacy rights[2]. Mr. Turner, can you pass this along to the appropriate people? [1] that is, modification that is not combined with some other activity germane to copyright [2] It's right there in Amendment IX; it's not my fault if some people are too stupid or too conservative[3] to notice it. [3] sorry for the redundancy in this statement -- G. Branden Robinson | The basic test of freedom is Debian GNU/Linux | perhaps less in what we are free to branden@debian.org | do than in what we are free not to http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | do. -- Eric Hoffer
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