In gnu.misc.discuss Alexander Terekhov <[email protected]> wrote: > > Alan Mackenzie wrote: > [...] >> The GPL was formulated by experienced lawyers, with good understanding >> of copyright and contract law. Do bear in mind that the law doesn't >> always mean what it seems to to the legally inexperienced. > > http://oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch09.html
> "Mark Fischer, a Boston attorney specializing in intellectual-property > law, recalls discussing the license with Stallman during this period. > "Richard had very strong views about how it should work," Fischer says, > "He had two principles. The first was to make the software absolutely as > open as possible. The second was to encourage others to adopt the same > licensing practices." > Encouraging others to adopt the same licensing practices meant closing > off the escape hatch that had allowed privately owned versions of Emacs > to emerge. To close that escape hatch, Stallman and his free software > colleagues came up with a solution: users would be free to modify GNU > Emacs just so long as they published their modifications. In addition, > the resulting "derivative" works would also have carry the same GNU > Emacs License. > The revolutionary nature of this final condition would take a while to > sink in. At the time, Fischer says, he simply viewed the GNU Emacs > License as a simple contract. It put a price tag on GNU Emacs' use. > Instead of money, Stallman was charging users access to their own later > modifications. That said, Fischer does remember the contract terms as > unique. > "I think asking other people to accept the price was, if not unique, > highly unusual at that time," he says. " > What say you now, Alan? Having gone through all of that, I say that the GPL was formulated by experienced lawyers with a good understanding of copyright and contract law. What've Mark Fischer's recollections, splendid chap though he may be, got to do with it? > Here's more: [ snip several hundred lines whose relevance to the thread is at best obscure. ] No thanks. > regards, > alexander. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
