Plan 9 license

[John Cowan]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, David Johnson wrote:

> In case I missed your point, the not charging for the Package itself
> stuff is okay as well. Everywhere where fee or price is discussed in
> the "FSD", it is for distribution or copying. The GPL is in agreement on
> this as well. Since it does not specifically allow charging for the
> software itself, copyright forbids it.

This is part of the "no mention in the license, ergo not allowed" fallacy.
It just ain't so.  The GPL, whatever may be said for other licenses,
restricts only the specific activities mentioned in the copyright act:
copying, modifying, distributing.  (It could restrict public performance,
too, but currently does not.)

If I own a book (a physical copy), I have the unlimited right to sell
that book for whatever I want.  The author (or the publisher) may not
impose through copyright any limitation on my right to do so, and to
charge whatever I want for the book.  (Current books contain a shrink-wrap
license somewhere near the copyright notice: does anyone know if
this has had a court test?)

> Plan 9 teeters on the edge of freeness but falls
> howling into the abyss of doom...

The business about Lucent being able to demand your private changes
is Evil and Rude also.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan at ccil.org
"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
	--Eric Raymond