FreeTDS Development Group

[Jon Pounder <pounder AT inline.net>]

I totally disagree with your assertion - copyright law is implied. It
grants no one other than the author the right to do anything. Distribution,
and copying, fall into this category. If the work is published, then
obviously referencing it does not fall into this category.

The GPL and LGPL remove a lot of these restrictions on copying and
distribution. The Sybase licence does quite the opposite, and goes so far
as to make referencing a published document un-permitted under certain
circumstances.


I sure hope someone from Sybase steps in soon and says "this was not what
was intended at all, we goofed with the statement", since in essence what
it really says is "anyone who reads this can't work on the freetds project
any more."



At 10:02 AM 9/15/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Andrew Pimlott <pimlott AT MATH.HARVARD.EDU> writes:
>
>> On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Greg Beeley wrote:
>> 
>> > If we go asserting that 'click-n-sign' EULAs on the Internet might be
invalid,
>> > where does that leave things like the GPL and LGPL?
>> 
>> It does not affect them.  If you reject the GPL, you wind up with rights
>> granted to you by copyright law, which would not permit you to distribute
>> copies at all.  In other words, the purpose of the GPL is to grant you
>> _more_ rights than you would otherwise have. 
>
>Please do not speak nonsense in a public forum, unintentionally.  I
>also do not understand the nuances (it's not my field), but:
>
>Copyright grants the holder the right to place restrictions on use and
>distribution under contract law.  The copyright holder can choose to
>establish just about any reasonable terms s/he wishes; thus RMS's
>unusual conditions in the (L)GPL.  If copyright is *not* asserted, the
>work belongs to the public domain and no restrictions on use or
>distribution apply.
>
>"Copyright law" doesn't talk about rights or burdens on the user or
>distributor of someone else's copyrighted work; it says the copyright
>holder can place terms (under contract law) on such users or
>distributors.
>
>Or something very much like that.
>
>> Not a law-talkin-guy,
>> Andrew
>
>Please accept my apologies in advance if you intended to mislead.  ;^)
>-- 
>Steven Work
>Renaissance Labs
>steve AT renlabs.com
>360 647-1833
>
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        Jon Pounder,   Development Engineer
        Inline Internet Systems
        pounder AT inline.net Jon AT Pounder.com

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