Merijn de Weerd wrote: > > On Tue, 5 Sep 2006 12:15:35 +0200 (CEST), "Alfred M. Szmidt" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > > If I distribute illegally, I am not bound by the license. See you > > in federal court for copyright infringement. I won't have to see > > you in state court where you try to compel specific performance of > > the license. > > > > What you are basically saying is: If I commit murder, then I am not > > bound by the law. Obviously, you are bound by the law, and in the > > case of violating the license, bound by the license. > > Your analogy is not valid. A license is not the law. It's an agreement > between parties: you allow me to do something, I will do something in > return. I am not bound by that until and unless I *choose* to do so.
And the contract laws recognize a concept called "efficient breach" which encourages breach of a contract if it's economically efficient to do so. Compliance with a contract is almost always voluntary -- if you choose not to comply, then you don't have to. You merely have to compensate the non-breaching party for his expectancy interest. So here comes the problem for GNU, and the reason why RMS and Moglen try/pretend to escape the realm of contact laws: economics is not what they want people and courts to look at. It's much easier to smoke-and-mirror inept general public with "Freedom, Free speech!" and other appealing slogans which have exact same relevance regarding GPL "conditions" as Bolsheviks' "Peace, Land, and Bread!" regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
