On Jun 20, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > You specifically have the right, in the US, at least, to make > changes that are "an essential step in the utilization of the > computer program". Indeed, there are such things as fair use and exceptions to copyright. We've already covered this. > Which turns out to include adding improvements you need. > http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2005/20051107.asp That's quite interesting. It's a far cry from the Free Software Definition's freedom #1, but no doubt this is another positive step from US courts. > And the court noted that no damage was done to the copyright holder by > someone else modifying their own copy of a work. ... because the copy was only for internal use. Quite unrelated with the original points of this debate, that's all about distribution. But no doubt it's a good thing. This is a reasoning that finds support in the original rationale for copyrights, but the fact that they have to resort to contortions such as thinking of "damage" shows how far behind the original rationale was left :-( -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} FSFLA Board Member ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
