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Re: GPL and other licences


From: Graham Murray
Subject: Re: GPL and other licences
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 22:51:23 +0000
User-agent: Gnus/5.110004 (No Gnus v0.4) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux)

"Alfred M\. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org> writes:

> Once again, I do NOT have to be the owner of the CD to accept the
> license.

I agree. Section 2, in the part about the notice to be displayed on
interactive programs, further reinforces this.

"c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
    when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
    interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
    announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
    notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
    a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
    these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
    License.

This explicitly states, what the preamble hinted at, that *ALL USERS*
(that is anyone running the program not just the owner of the physical
media on which the program resides) of the GPL'd program have the
right to accept the licence and become a licensee. This clause is
basically telling owners of a copy who have modified it that they must
inform users of the modified program (not just people to whom they
distribute copies) the rights that the GPL provides them.

Taking this in conjunction with clause 3b, even if the user is not
allowed to copy the binary from the system on which it is being run
then they are, under the terms of the GPL allowed to obtain the source
code of the program (being as it has to be made available to *all*
third parties who request it).


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