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Re: Legal questions about some GNU Emacs files



On Sat, Apr 26, 2003 at 08:08:01PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote:
> 
> According to Dylan Thurston (see #154043), some files shipped
> with GNU Emacs could be considered as non-free.
> 
> One of them is /usr/share/emacs/21.3/etc/LINUX-GNU.
> 
> The problem seem to come from the footer which mentions:
> 
>   Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
>   Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted
>   without royalty as long as this notice is preserved.
> 
> Also in /usr/share/emacs/21.3/etc/WHY-FREE
> 
>   Copyright 1994 Richard Stallman
>   Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted
>   without royalty as long as this notice is preserved;
>   alteration is not permitted.
> 
> 
> What do you people think of this?

What do I think? I think WHY-FREE is a very ironic name for something so
non-free. It should be removed, of course. I'm sorry if RMS will be
unhappy, but the DFSG does not make exceptions if people are unhappy.
Documentation *is* software, and therefore its licenses must follow the
DFSG; I thought we just decided that.

-- 
Brian M. Carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.ath.cx> 0x560553e7
"Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable. Let us prepare
 to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it
 after all." --Douglas Adams

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