Re: GPL and other licences

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

I'm having a hard time following your message, you speak of property
and ownership of software, neither of which are applicable to
software.  You cannot own software; since you cannot own software, it
cannot be property.


The license is infact attached to the software (i.e. work), and not
the actual physical entity that it resides on.  Anything else would be
absurd, since if you sell me your harddisk, and you for some odd
reason forget to remove all data on it, then by your argument, I am
now the lawful licensee (and even the copyright holder(?)) of all your
files; no matter what the license is of each particular file is (it
could for example be `ams is not allowed to look at this file')

It seems that you are mixing up two cases (once again), the CD
(i.e. physical entity that the software resides on), in which you are
eniterly correct, and I never disagreed there (and I'm getting a bit
tired saying that).  And the cases of where you actually aquired
(legally) a program (on what is not relevant!) which is licensed under
the GPL from your employeer.  Obviously, unless the employer allows me
to scratch the physical media which the software resides on, I'm not
allowed to scratch it.  But the employeer is simply incapable to
dictate what I can do with the program, other than by just refusing to
give me the software (once again, the physical media is irrelevant);
at which point I'm not in possession of the software (physical media
is irrelevant), and I have no rights to the software, since I don't
have the software.

I'm starting to wonder where our disagreement is. :-)

Cheers.