Re: PathSearchAndQualify patch not applied?

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 04:06:10PM +0300, Nadav Frum wrote:
> In particular, copyright does not apply when it is impractical to
> enforce it.  

Yes, copyright does apply.

Just because it's impractical for Microsoft to enforce their licensing
(they can't visit every home and check to make sure every user has
bought a license), does NOT mean that they therefore lose all rights to
control the copying of their software.  Just because it's "hard" to
differentiate one patch from the rest of the code, does not mean that
the patch somehow gets given over to the people that wrote the main bits
of the code.

I think it's the same thing as arguing that just because a certain area
(state, county, country, whatever) doesn't have enough law enforcement
people, and they therefore can't effectively investigate murders, that
murder somehow becomes legal.  It's impractical to *prosecute*, yes, but
that still doesn't make the act legal.