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Re: For those who care about the GR



On Sun, Jan 22, 2006 at 04:19:49PM -0600, Peter Samuelson wrote:
> 
> [Bill Allombert]
> > Fact 1: The GFDL include this:
> > 
> >  "You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the
> >   reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute."
> > 
> > Fact 2: The DFSG include this:
> > 
> > 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
> > 
> >      The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
> >      program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not
> >      restrict the program from being used in a business, or from
> >      being used for genetic research.
> 
> Yes....
> 
> > Fact 3:
> > 
> > There exist fields of endeavours that require mandatory encryption.
> > For example, if you work in security-sensitive field, you can be
> > required to use a hard-drive with built-in encryption.  This
> > technology certainly control who can read the disk.  In that case,
> > you cannot copy a GFDL licensed document to your computer for reading
> > it.
> 
> That's not at all what DFSG 6 means.  That's equivalent to interpreting
> DFSG 6 to ban the GPL on the grounds that it discriminates against
> proprietary software companies.

No, the GPL does not ban proprietary software companies from using the
software.

> DFSG 6 does not say "anything a company might plausibly want to do, our
> software must allow them to do".  It merely says that every field of
> endeavor must be given the same rights.  Never mind whether that set of
> rights is enough to satisfy any given party.

No it does not either. It says "The license must not restrict anyone from
making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor".  No mention
of "giving the same right".

Cheers,
Bill.



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