Re: [WASTE-dev-public] Do not package WASTE! UNAUTHORIZED SOFTWARE [Was: Re: Questions about waste licence and code.]
On 5/19/05, Roberto C. Sanchez <roberto@familiasanchez.net> wrote:
> http://web.archive.org/web/20041130014304/http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> http://web.archive.org/web/20041105024302/http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
Thanks, Roberto. The (moderately) explicit bit I had in mind is in
fact still in the current FAQ, I just missed it:
( http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#TOCIfInterpreterIsGPL )
... The interpreted program, to the interpreter, is just data; a free
software license like the GPL, based on copyright law, cannot limit
what data you use the interpreter on.
But you are quite right to provide the "philosophy" link, since that's
the one that (IMHO, IANAL) goes way over the top:
<quote>
Most free software licenses are based on copyright, and there are
limits on what kinds of requirements can be imposed through copyright.
If a copyright-based license respects freedom in the ways described
above, it is unlikely to have some other sort of problem that we never
anticipated (though this does happen occasionally). However, some free
software licenses are based on contracts, and contracts can impose a
much larger range of possible restrictions. That means there are many
possible ways such a license could be unacceptably restrictive and
non-free.
We can't possibly list all the possible contract restrictions that
would be unacceptable. If a contract-based license restricts the user
in an unusual way that copyright-based licenses cannot, and which
isn't mentioned here as legitimate, we will have to think about it,
and we will probably decide it is non-free.
</quote>
This text is still present in http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html .
Cheers,
- Michael
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