Hacker News Reader

Comment by belorn | Hacker News Reader

That is a false statement. Please try understand copyright law when making statements about it.

Copyright impose restrictions, and GPL gives permission where you do not have any. If you get sued for copyright infringement, its your job to waive the GPL as your permission to distribute. The legal permission granted in the GPL is what protect your distribution, and without it, anything requiring copyright permission is illegal.

Words have meanings indeed, and the word restrictions is thus wrong, plain and simple. The GPL provide permission under a set of requirements. This is true for any software license, including BSD/MIT.

So the obviously false claims are yours here, Im sorry to tell you. If you don't want to be granted permission under the license, all you need to do is stop infringing the copyright of the author. That and possible pay compensation for any current act of infringement.

View on HN

You mean “wave the GPL”, not “waive the GPL”, which would be quite a different thing. (Words have meanings indeed.)

>That is a false statement.

No it is not.

>Please try understand copyright law when making statements about it.

I understand it quite well. You are simply confused. The GPL gives you permission to do things that you couldn't do otherwise due to copyright law. But it gives you that permission under several restrictions. MIT/BSD/ISC license also give you permission to do things that you couldn't do otherwise, but does so under fewer restrictions. This is not complex or difficult to understand.

You see the world in black and white. You are right and everybody who disagrees is wrong, a liar, childish or confused (all direct quotes from you).

I was simply going to ignore your aggressive behavior, but now that others chimed in...

> MIT/BSD/ISC license also give you permission to do things that you couldn't do otherwise, but does so under fewer restrictions.

Somebody takes a BSD program, extends it, and distributes binaries. This restricts my ability to inspect, improve, or extend the code. Restrictions don't have to be written into a license. You ignore those implicit restrictions and their consequences, while complaining about explicit restrictions.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you're not going to agree and just add another aggressive or insulting reply.

No, it doesn't. Your ability inspect, improve, and extend the BSD licensed code is not affected by the release of the closed derivative, and you had no ability to do that to the closed derivative before it was created and released, so there is no meaningful sense in which that release restricts an ability you had without it. There is a huge difference between failing to give you a new ability which you don't have prior to the release and restricting an ability.

Thanks, I understand your reasoning, but I think we'll just have to disagree.

>You see the world in black and white

I see simple objective questions in black and white because they are. Is 1+1 2? Yes. There is no grey area. The answer is yes. If you say it is 3, then you are in fact wrong.

>Somebody takes a BSD program, extends it, and distributes binaries. This restricts my ability to inspect, improve, or extend the code.

No it does not. See, this is precisely what I mean. You are simply making an objectively false statement. Here is some BSD licensed code: http://openssh.org/ I challenge you: restrict my ability to inspect, improve or extend it. Hundreds of closed source pieces of software use that code. Yet it is still there, still BSD licensed, my ability to inspect, improve and extend has not been magically removed.

>Anyway, I'm pretty sure you're not going to agree and just add another aggressive or insulting reply.

You might want to consider some introspection. You are screaming 1+1=3 at me and calling me "aggressive and insulting" for correcting you.

Exactly what I expected.

You are using the word "restrictions" incorrect. Words has meaning, but incorrect usages of them only create sentences without meaning.

For a restriction to happen, you got to have permission in the first place. Since you do not have any permission, a copyright license can not in any form add a restriction. It is not possible under the English language.

Permission can be granted under conditions, also called requirements. A sale for example is to exchange an asset under the condition that the consumer can pay. Its not valid English to say that its an exchange of an asset under the restriction that the consumer can pay.

Your insistence on using incorrect English only paint a picture of someone with a agenda. Words has meaning, and you are trying to ignore it. Please stop.

>You are using the word "restrictions" incorrect

No I am not. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/restriction

You are trying to be pedantic, but you are simply incorrect. The GPL imposes restrictions as part of the license conditions. Obviously you are not subject to those restrictions if you do not accept the license, and obviously you also don't get the permissions that go with those restrictions either. Nobody is claiming otherwise. The exact nonsense you are doing is precisely why people hate GPL nuts. You are deliberately dishonest and try to hide behind misguided pedantry.

The only deliberately dishonest person here is you. The linked dictionary show quite clear how wrong you are, but I guess I can't expect you to actually read what you link. A restriction can only limit something you already have (read your link). You can not gain something by limit it, nor is a limited area bigger than the whole area itself.

The only way GPL can limit you, is if what you had previous is more. You might feel self-restricted by accepting a license, in the same way that my income will be restricted if I buy a new car every week. The car however is not a restriction, nor is the trade a restriction. Its my action of purchasing beyond my credit limit that is the restriction.

What people hate is irrational people that you represent here that refuses to actually use correct language in favor of pushing your agenda onto people. Calling you nut might be a bit crude, but what else is there to say.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com