In gnu.misc.discuss Hyman Rosen <hyro...@mail.com> wrote: > Alan Mackenzie wrote: >> That bit of the law doesn't allow to hack the program >> you've cracked, though.
> No, as I've said, the part of the law that does is this: > <http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf> Page 69 > Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an > infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to > make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of > that computer program provided: > (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an > essential step in the utilization of the computer program in > conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other > manner, > You've already been quoted a court case that gives enormous latitude > to which changes may be considered "essential", and that latitude > includes adding new functionality. Hyman, you must learn to read things in their proper context. That was a program being mildly modified by a company purely for its own internal use, and even that was a pretty margianl decision by the judge. Whilst what you say there may not be untrue, it is misleading. The scenario permeating this thread is of somebody enhancing a copyright program, the GCC, with his enhancements which don't conform to the GCC's license in a separate binary file, then DISTRIBUTING the whole. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss