From owner-freebsd-chat Thu May 18 19:32:29 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mail.ptd.net (mail1.ha-net.ptd.net [207.44.96.65]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 8476737B91B for ; Thu, 18 May 2000 19:31:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tms2@mail.ptd.net) Received: (qmail 4155 invoked from network); 19 May 2000 02:30:56 -0000 Received: from du27.cli.ptd.net (HELO mail.ptd.net) (204.186.33.27) by mail.ptd.net with SMTP; 19 May 2000 02:30:56 -0000 Message-ID: <3924803C.7C5BD92C@mail.ptd.net> Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 19:43:56 -0400 From: "Thomas M. Sommers" Organization: No X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; I; FreeBSD 3.2-RELEASE i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? References: <000001bfbf78$b1b345c0$021d85d1@youwant.to> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org David Schwartz wrote: > > The GPL does state: > > "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies > of this license document, but changing it is not allowed." > > But this does not grant permission to apply the GPL to your works > however you please. It doesn't have to. You can use it any way you want, subject to any restrictions on use that it contains, and it contains none. > As far as I can tell, the only such grant is contained in the > "How to Apply These Terms to your New Programs" sections, which doesn't > permit this. The "How to Apply ..." thing is an appendix, not part of the license proper. It has no legal effect, any more than the preamble has. Even if it were binding, it is not written prescriptively: If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms. To do so, ... It is saying, "This is the best way to make your program useful", not "This is the only way you can use this license." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message