From: mcguire@cs.utexas.edu (Tommy Marcus McGuire) Subject: Re: IMPORTANT: SLS status Date: 29 Jun 1993 13:57:28 -0500
In article <jvsC977Cs.Gn7@netcom.com> jvs@netcom.com (Jonathan Stockley) writes:
>In article <m2mirrINNgb4@cash.cs.utexas.edu> mcguire@cs.utexas.edu (Tommy Marcus McGuire) writes:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, 24 Jun 93 01:43:36 GMT, sanjuan!pmacdona@sol.UVic.CA (Peter MacDonald) said:
>>>Peter> So, starting with the next release, the SLS copyright will be
>>>Peter> enhanced to be a superset of GNU. In addition, both the
>>>Peter> Linux and SLS copyrights will be required in solicitations
>>>Peter> or advertisments. Finally, the terms of support must be
>>>Peter> made clear, in writing to the recipients. This means also
>>>Peter> explaining that Softlanding does not support them, unless
>>>Peter> purchased from a valid Softlanding reseller.
>>
>>How precisely are you planning on "enhancing" the GPL? By preventing
>>anyone from making a second generation (or later) copy of SLS?
>>This is treading on a fairly fine line.
>
>Pay closer attention! Peter didn't say the GPL would be enhanced. He
>said the SLS copyright will be enhanced to be a superset of GNU.
>The implication here is that the SLS copyright will be the GPL as a
>minimum.
Read the General Public License! From section 6.: "Each time you
redistribute the Program (or any work based on the program), the
recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor
to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms
and conditions [i.e. the GPL]. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
A copyright merely tells everyone what they cannot do to a work,
namely anything other than look at it themselves. The license
agreement tells them what they can do. In the case of the GPL,
this means copying, distruibuting, and modifying the work under certain
specific restrictions. By "SLS copyright will be enhanced to be a
superset of GNU," I assumed that either additional or less restrictions
were to be placed on the work in question by the new, improved SLS
license agreement (technically, I assumed additional restrictions, but
it really doesn't matter either way). Now, this new SLS license
agreement will only apply to parts of SLS which are independent of and
separate from the GPL'ed works contained by the SLS such as GCC and the
linux kernel or the GPL would need to be changed to remove that
section I quoted above.
Why would you want to do this, anyway?
>>Tommy McGuire
[...]
>Jo Stockley.
[...]
=====
Tommy McGuire
mcguire@cs.utexas.edu
mcguire@austin.ibm.com
"...I will append an appropriate disclaimer to outgoing public information,
identifying it as personal and as independent of IBM...."