Re: Economics and the GP

"Roger Fujii" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> the *only* way you can have "unauthorized copying" of the GPL is to change
it.

Yes, the way the GPL is written and licensed today.  What I had suggested was
that the FSF could, if it chose, change the licensing of the GPL itself to try
to require that works distributed with the GPL be exclusively distributed with
the GPL.

> > > However, [reducing copyright length] is an uphill battle against
> > > powerful entrenched interests, so it's hard to win this one.
> If that were their intent, they would have time-limited the GPL.  

RMS and the FSF have repeatedly stated that they support reducing the length of
copyright*.  I imagine the reason they do not time-limit the GPL is that they
do not want to unilaterally weaken the GPL and give an advantage to proprietary
code.

*For example, see http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/eldred-amicus.html,
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html


=====
Sincerely,
Matt Seitz

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