Re: The draft Position statement on the GFDL
Raul Miller wrote:
>> Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:
>>
>> > On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 04:18:22PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> >> as the GFDL. The parenthetical is false. The GPL does not require
>> >> that it be included in the distributed work, merely with the
>> >> distributed work.
>> >
>> > I don't think this is a very meaningful distinction, for the context I
>> > was discussing.
>
> On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 07:36:04PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> The distinction is very important when discussing the freeness or
>> non-freeness of the GFDL.
>
> But this was the GPL, not the GFDL.
>
>> > Given that the GPL applies only when a notice is contained in the
>> > work,
>>
>> That is not true. For example, I have next to me a watercolor
>> painting licensed under the GPL. The work itself does not contain a
>> notice; rather, there is a tag next to it which gives its title,
>> copyright information, and the fact that it is licenses to all those
>> who receive a copy -- though not all viewers -- under the terms of the
>> GNU GPL, version 2.
>
> If the work doesn't contain a notice, the GPL doesn't say that it applies.
It does anyway, if my notice says it applies.
> Of course for copyright purposes it might be reasonable to say that the
> painting and the notice together are contained in the work.
No. That's not right; it would imply that the copyright over the work
applied to the notice, which it doesn't.
>> Similarly, I could hand you a book and tell you that I license to you
>> all my rights in that book under the terms of the GPL, and the GPL
>> would apply.
>
> And if you lied?
>
> Or changed your mind?
>
> Or if I lied?
>
> How could a judge know that I wasn't lying when I tell him you said it
> was a GPLed work?
You kept a copy of the notice, didn't you? :-) Perhaps you recorded
Brian's verbal statement?
>> > and given that you must keep that notice intact, ... well you still
>> > have the notice (or notices), which you must leave intact, that's still
>> > -- in the fully general sense that some people seem to want to use --
>> > a restriction on modifications to the work.
>>
>> You are incorrect due to overgeneralization. You must leave a notice
>> iff there was a notice. But, for a start, that is only a mark on the
>> source code. It need not impact the compiled program at all. That
>> is, it must be visible to one inspecting the program, but not to one
>> using the program. You must also leave the notice on an interactive
>> program intact, but that is also a much weaker limitation -- it does
>> not apply to noninteractive programs, for example.
>
> Are you trying to argue that a GPLed binary is a work independent from
> the sources it's built from?
No, he isn't. Why would you think that?
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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