Hi, Hadron! In gnu.misc.discuss Hadron <[email protected]> wrote: > Alan Mackenzie <[email protected]> writes:
>>> The GPL is useless without copyright law. The two are entertwined. You >>> cannot understand the GPL without understanding copyright law, thus the >>> "contents fo the GPL" includes copyright law, because the GPL is a >>> "derivitive work" of it. >> Right, now I'm beginning to see what you mean when you assert that the >> GPL is difficult to understand. By the same argument, all copyright >> licenses are difficult to understand. > It's not what "Erik asserts". It's what anyone with an ounce of common > sense sees day in day out. This thread being yet another example of it. Look Hadron, you're not "anyone", and your use of the phrase "common sense" is a somewhat specialized one. > To assert it's easy because you THINK you understand it fully is > bordering on the preposterous. We seem to be degenerating into an argument about words. "Fully" is your word. If by "understand the GPL", you mean understand all the niceties of a legal process involving the GPL, then no, I don't understand it to that degree; I don't need to, and don't want to. I'm a software engineer, not a lawyer. >> However, the GPL is NOT tangled with copyright law. It sits on top of >> it, or to one side of it, or whatever, but it is separate. And no, you >> don't need to understand copyright law to understand the GPL, any more >> than you need to understand cell physiology to understand what an >> antibiotic does. [ .... ] >>> I'm not. I'm blaming the people that say it's impossible to >>> misunderstand the GPL. >> You might be referring to me, here. If so, let me correct the false >> impression you've got. I haven't said it's impossible to misunderstand >> the GPL - clearly, going by this thread, it's very possible to >> misunderstand, particularly by people who put enough effort into it. > You don't have to put effort into misunderstanding the GPL. Maybe not, but it helps. >> What I said was the GPL is easy to understand, which is true, but that > No it isn't. Yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is, no it isn't ..... Isn't it great to have an adult conversation? ;-( >> assumes a normally intelligent person prepared to spend the time to read >> read the GPL attentively. > So now you have to study it attentively and spend lots of time? Yes, you have to study it attentively, something which won't give a hacker or some other intelligent person any trouble at all. It takes time, but not a lot of time - maybe an hour, or a small number of hours. > So its [the GPL's] NOT "easy to understand". It's easy enough for me. It might not be for you. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
