Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sgi!bron@bronze.wpd.sgi.com From: bron@bronze.wpd.sgi.com (Bron Campbell Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license Summary: Not like a sale, more like a lease. Message-ID: <39129@sgi.SGI.COM> Date: 28 Jul 89 17:49:35 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26719@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 35 In article <26719@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes: > [much heated debate removed] > > >Don't you suppose that the author of a program that happens to have > >been compiled with the GCC compiler using the GNU libraries should > >have more right to the program than the FSF? > > Can someone explain to me how it is software vendors can assert control > over what is done with a product once it is sold? (I mean the > ~reasoning~ behind the law, not the law itself.) > > Simple soul that I am, I think in analogies. [Caddy analogy deleted] I think the problem with the analogy is that it talks about sales. Try to think about leasing instead. How about this: You rent me your car. The next day you ask me what happened to it. My reply? "I sold it." The point is that in the case of FSF at least, they are quite specifically NOT giving you full rights to the software. The "copyleft" spells out the rights that they are retaining, and that you must respect in order to use their software. You are NOT given the right to do whatever you want to with the software. Now, the rights that FSF has chosen to try and retain are about 180 degrees out of phase with the rights commercial establishments try to retain (instead of trying to prevent people from making a copy of the stuff, they try to prevent people from not being able to make a copy of the stuff), but I believe the principle involved is the same. The only thing that is unquestionably "sold" to you is the media itself. If you were to erase the tape, you could resell it to the highest bidder without FSF squawking about it. -- Bron Campbell Nelson bron@sgi.com or possibly ..!ames!sgi!bron These statements are my own, not those of Silicon Graphics.