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List:       kde-licensing
Subject:    Re: Proposed QPL mods - 3rd try
From:       Raul Miller <rdm () test ! legislate ! com>
Date:       1998-12-01 22:46:12
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Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> However, any use which does not violate copyright, cannot be restricted by
> copyright.  Broadly speaking, this means anything that does not involve
> copying.  Once I have legally obtained a copy of a program, the owners have
> no control over what I do with it.  If I have legally obtained a copy of a
> book, the author cannot prevent me burning it, nor can he prevent me cutting
> it up and making a collage of the mess I have produced.
> 
> There is an "exception" to this.  The exception is that the copyright owners
> may have forced me to sign a contract before they are prepared to give me
> the program.  Obviously, a contract that I have signed could limit me in a
> wide variety of ways, and if I didn't agree I shouldn't have signed.  A
> common example of this is an NDA.  I used to be an Apple developer, and I
> could have had access to Apple pre-release software - but to do so, I would
> have had to sign and return an NDA.

And, the GPL language, which states that you must agree to follow the
terms of the license or you do not have the right to distribute the
GPLed software is a variation on this theme.

[Note that it's not a shrinkwrap license, because it doesn't ask you to
agree to the terms of the license before you may use the software -- only
before you may distribute it.]

More generally, the terms which you agree to, when you get permission to
distribute the work, may bind you in any of a variety of ways.

-- 
Raul

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