On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 04:17:57 -0500, Ron Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > On 09/13/07 02:45, Josselin Mouette wrote: >> Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 16:51 +0200, Romain Beauxis a écrit : >>> It often start with "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE" and it' clearly >>> written: " Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim >>> copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed." >>> >>> Shouldn't we garantee the right for our users to modify LICENCEs ?? >> >> This common belief that the GPL text itself is non-free is unfounded. >> >> Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license? You can use the >> GPL terms (possibly modified) in another license provided that you >> call your license by another name and do not include the GPL >> preamble, and provided you modify the instructions-for-use at the end >> enough to make it clearly different in wording and not mention GNU >> (though the actual procedure you describe may be similar). >> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL > Paraphrasing Luk Claes: > besides we as Debian only want our users the freedom to be able to > if they wanted it, to willy-nilly modify the GPL text. They can, as long as they publish it under a new name. > Quoting Mirim Ruiz: > What about ... changing the format or structure for clarifying, or > even fixing typos? Sure, as long as you change the name of the result and call it Rons General Public License. There is also a pragmatic distinction: License textsembody the permission under which we can distribute the software; RFC's do not. We can't retroactively change the license terms we distribute the software under; so hacking up a license, under law, would mean we can not distribute the result. That one point of law makes a critical, pragmatic difference; so a Work, and the terms of the licesne which grants us the right to modify and distribute the work, have to be treated differently -- or else we have no distribution. manoj -- If life is merely a joke, the question still remains: for whose amusement? Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/> 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]