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Re: GPL and other licences


From: David Kastrup
Subject: Re: GPL and other licences
Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:19:09 +0100
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux)

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

>    A company employee is not free to do whatever he wants with company
>    property (such as a software CD) that he needs for doing his job.
>
>    He is not the rightful owner.
>
>    If you are an employee of mine and get access to software in my
>    possession for the purpose of job, you are not permitted to make
>    copies for your private use.
>
> If the license explicitly states so, yes.

The license is relevant to the licensee.  That's not you.

> But the GPL does not, so I am allowed to make copies of GPLed
> software for my own private use.

Wrong.  You can't go around copying the property of other people
without their explicit permission.  Only when you _acquire_ a copy
yourself (instead of merely using another person's physical copy with
their permission) do you gain the rights from copyright and possibly
the license text.  As long as you are not the licensee (by proper
acquisition, and acting on behalf of a company is not acquisition),
the license is a piece of paper or a jumble of bits.

Completely irrelevant to you.

> This is where our opinions differ I think.

You think that the GPL magically spreads possession around like a
contagious disease or something.  You have been reading too much FUD
from SCO, I guess.

>    A tangible copy _is_ property, and getting company-internal
>    access to it does not grant you the rights connected with owning
>    this property: namely copying its contents.
>
> But the content isn't property!  The _medium_ that the content
> resides on is.

But you have no right whatsoever to access the content without
acquiring a physical copy of it into your possession.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum


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