Legal soundness comes to open source distribution

[Russell Nelson]

Lawrence E. Rosen writes:
 > Then how about a provision of the OSD that reads something like the
 > following:
 > 
 >   An open source license cannot restrict any fair
 >   use rights that would be available for a copyrighted
 >   work in the absence of a license.
 > 
 > That certainly would prevent someone from restricting the publication of
 > benchmark results, or using the work for "purposes such as criticism,
 > comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for
 > classroom use), scholarship, or research."  17 U.S.C. §107.

What about adding 17 U.S.C. §117 rights as well?  That would ensure
that anybody who got a copy of the software would be able to use it,
back it up, and restore it if necessary.

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