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From: bernstei@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Copyleft may be invalid in some states
Message-ID: <341@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 17 Oct 89 03:23:39 GMT
Sender: news@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
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What follow are my opinions; I'm not a lawyer.

In some states, such as New York, most contracts, licenses, etc. require
some compensation. The compensation doesn't have to be tangible, but the
traditional ``sold my house for a dollar'' avoids any legal problems.

A program placed under GNU Copyleft is licensed without compensation.
Hence there is an excellent chance that someone in these states could
successfully render Copyleft invalid in court. If the FSF continues
blacklisting companies that don't agree with its politics, I wouldn't
be surprised to see one of those companies using the compensation laws
to throw a wrench into the GNU operation.

RMS considers it ``useless'' to discuss this topic, and I can
understand his position: it's against his philosophy to receive
compensation. But there is a legal solution. Copyleft shouldn't be
a full copyright modified by a license; it should be a limited
copyright.

Most commercial software vendors use software licenses rather than
copyrights, since licenses allow arbitrary conditions and can provide
fine control over the use and distribution of programs. But unless FSF
is trying to exert that control, it should get rid of the extra
complexity and use limited copyrights---and thereby avoid questions
of compensation. I believe Columbia uses limited copyrights to protect
Kermit (quite successfully) for this reason.

---Dan Bernstein, brnstnd@acf10.nyu.edu, bernstei@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu