Get ready....

[Tim Pierce]

On Wed, Apr 14, 1999 at 07:42:35PM -0000, bruce at perens.com wrote:
> Of course you must prohibit modification of the instance of a license that
> is actually used to protect someone's copyright, or it isn't of any use in
> protecting the copyright. It's OK for a _prototype_ license to be modified,
> though, and then instantiated as a real software license that can not be
> further modified. Whether this is allowed or not is up to the license
> author.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction.  If I "modify" the GPL,
then I can't claim special rights to the Emacs source code -- it was
released under the Real GPL, not Tim's GPL.  I also can't re-release a
modified Emacs under Tim's GPL, because the Real GPL forbids that.  My
modified GPL can be applied only to software packages under my
control.

In other words, any modification to a license is effectively modifying
a "prototype" license for use with a real software package.  But maybe
I don't understand what you were trying to say.

It would be interesting to find out whether the text of a license can
itself be protected as intellectual property, or whether the license
is by its nature public domain or otherwise free.

-- 
Regards,
Tim Pierce
RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative
system obfuscator and hack-of-all-trades