I am not. A company is a legal entity that enters into agreements as itself. Agents of the company are not party to these agreements. It is not because a work is released under the GPL that you can grab from whenever you please.
I never claimed that. Please reread what my claim is: If company A gives me a legally obtained CD with GPLed software on it, then company A cannot dictate what I can do with it, since the copyright license gives me explicit permission to redistribute, if I want to. > > Property != Software! Why are you confusing the two? I'm not > > talking about property, we agree on that. If the company lends > > me a car, then it isn't my car. Simple as that. Why are you > > insisting on this? > > And if the company gives you its software to perform your duties, > it isn't your software, simple as that. You have only the right to > use the software as instructed by the company, like you have only > the right to use the company car as instructed by the company. > > No, not true. The company cannot dictate the terms of how the > software can be used, only the copyright holder can. If the license > of the software disallow something, the company cannot go and say that > it is allowed. Of course they can. The copyright holder most definitely cannot control how the software is used (unless there is a contract stipulating such), The company is not the copyright holder. And on top of that, the program is licensed under the GNU GPL. So how the software can be used is already defined. > If the license of the design allows me to do this, yes. Only if the design is licensed to _you_. The license is not an intrinsic property of the design or software, but a grant of rights from the copyright holder to _you_. This is were you are confused. The fact that a design or software is intangible has got nothing to do with the right to copy, it's whether _you_ have a license to do so. And in the case of your employer entrusting you with a CD, you do not acquire a copy, or a license, and hence the provisions of the GPL (or copyright law in general) do not apply to you. I do aquire a license if the employer entrusts me with the CD. It is the same thing if I give a CD with the same content (legally obtained) to a friend. They recive a license to use/modify/look/redistribute. There are no laws that say that a company gets to dictate the terms of someone elses copyrighted material. If the license explicitly states that the material can only be used in building A, that is a different matter. But with the GNU GPL, there is no such clause, and allows anyone who recived the software leagally to use, modify and redistribute the software. The company cannot redictate the terms of the license. You'd have a point if the license explictly disallowed this, but as it is, it doesn't. Simply repeating a mantra doesn't make it true, you know. "To have something in ones hand" is not the same as "being the owner of a legal copy". I'm assuming that the `thing' was obtained legally, if it wasn't, then the case is quite clear. OK, this again shows where you go wrong. The license is not part of the content, but an agreement between two parties. This is why the copyright holder can license the same work under different licenses to different people. This is something different entierly. But it _is_ relevant - the postman is not the owner of the CDs he's delivering (though he has the CDs in his hands), and you as an employee/agent of the company are not the owner of the CDs with the GPLed software. Thus, neither you nor the postman can invoke the license, or have the right to copy the CD. Since the postman didn't obtain the CD's _leagally_, it really doesn't matter. Employee recived the CD's leagally from his employeer, and the employeer recived the CD's directly from the copyright holder. The CD's contain GPLed licensed software. Since the GPL explcitly allows me to use, redistribute, etc, then the company cannot state that I am not allowed to do so. If you are not in legal posession of the CDs to begin with, then there is no point in the discussion. All arguments from me are based on the assumption that the content was legally obtained! > Since the company gave me a copy of the CD legally, I am legally bound > by the software licenses that are on the CD, and can only do the > things that those software licenses dictate me to do. If they allow > me to redistribute the software to others, then I am allowed to do so. Wrong. I tried to explain that the company handed you a CD for specific purposes, but they did not transfer ownership of said CD. The fact that the word "to give" can mean a transfer of ownership (I give you this present) as well as a mere temporary transfer (I gave the parcel to the postman) does not mean that you can pick and choose the meaning that suits you. _If_ the company transferred ownership of the CD containing GPLed software, then yes, you can decide to enter into a license agreement with the copyright holders when you decide to redistribute the software. If, on the other hand, they "gave" you the CD so you could place it in a cupboard, you have absolutely no rights, whatever the license the company obtained the software under. Sighs. Once again, confusion between property and non-property. I'm getting quite tired of restating the following: The company owns the CD. The company is not the copyright holder. If the company gives me the CDs, then I'm not allowed to resell those CDs. I am on the other hand allowed to do what the license of the software which is located on the CDs allows me to do. If it allows me to redistribute the code, then I am allowed to do this, the company cannot redictate the terms of the copyright license. Please, stop confusing property and non-property. Last time: Employee is not the owner of the CDs, company is not the copyright holder, employee is not allow to throw the CDs out the window without the employeers explict permission. Employee is allowed on the other hand to redistribute the software _IFF_ the license of the software allows him to do this. Please get rid of the backslash in your name. It looks ridiculous. Now I see where I got the Backslash nick name from. I have no idea how to get rid of it. I don't even know where it comes from. My From line contains no backslash. But all my outgoing messages have a backslash... Though, my outbox doesn't. Cheers (and sorry if I bit your head of in the previous mail with the Backslash nickname, I read my mail in reverse chronical order so I didn't see this one before the other one). _______________________________________________ Gnu-misc-discuss mailing list Gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
