kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:

> In article  Ronald Cole  writes:

> >Oh, bullshit, Richard...  The GPL plainly says "To protect your

> >rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you

> >these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights."

> >

> >It seems clear that "discouraging free distribution" is equivalent

> >in effect to asking you to surrender the right to distribute.

> 

> That's correct, though I'd use the word "waive" rather than

> "surrender".



Dewar posted that he feels that he is within the "letter *and the

spirit*" of the GPL when he *asks* his "wavefront" customers not to

redistribute that which he distributes.  I, however, feel that by

doing so, he has violated the "spirit" of the GPL (since the quoted

clause is found in the preamble and doesn't appear to be present in

the enumerated sections).



> But the key point that this is *asking*, not *requiring*.



Still, the GPL says "To protect your rights, we need to make

restrictions that forbid anyone to ... *ask* you to surrender the

rights" and then fails to actually enumerate such a restriction (a

loophole which apparently both Stallman and Dewar use to discourage

"runaway snapshots").