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From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,gnu.misc.discuss,trial.misc.legal.software
Subject: Re: Ghostscript: The bad news
Message-ID: <19032:Dec1812:26:0990@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 90 12:26:09 GMT
References: <1990Dec16.104300.12930@pegasus.com> <1990Dec17.145953.15161@rodan.acs.syr.edu> <1990Dec17.200012.28085@cs.UAlberta.CA>
Organization: IR
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You may distribute exact and complete copies of this article.

In article <1990Dec17.200012.28085@cs.UAlberta.CA> beck@cs.UAlberta.CA (Bob Beck) writes:
> The whole point of "copyleft" is that you are
> **NOT** allowed to restrict the free distribution of the code for the
> package in question.
  [ ... ]
> The author can't "take back"

That's simply not true.

I've permanently waived some of my exclusive copyright on this article.
People can (e.g.) print out millions of copies and give them to friends.
I can't take away this right.%

But it's ridiculous to believe that I can no longer sell copies of this
article, or change it and sell the new copies. I'm the one giving away
rights here, and I haven't restricted myself by giving you something.

The same comments apply to the GPL. The point of copyleft is not to
restrict the author's rights; it's to limit his restrictions on other
people's rights.

---Dan

%This isn't strictly true. Copyright law says that an author can revoke
copyright limitations any time between 35 and 40 years later. And state
law may reduce this period to just 7 years.