Automatic GPL termination

[Philippe Verdy]

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org]
> Envoyé : mercredi 12 septembre 2007 19:39
> À : Alexander Terekhov
> Cc : Chris Travers; John Cowan; verdy_p at wanadoo.fr; lrosen at rosenlaw.com;
> dlw; license-discuss at opensource.org
> Objet : Re: Automatic GPL termination
> 
> Alexander Terekhov scripsit:
> > On 9/12/07, Chris Travers <chris.travers at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > That is what I thought at first until I noticed that Evers is allowed
> to do
> > > this *without* modifying code.
> 
> Distinguish between "code" and "Code", which is a name for Tinker's whole
> work *including* its license.  The code is the same, but Code has been
> changed.

NO. The GPL licence does not cover the licence itself which is copyrighted
by the FSF and distributed under very strict conditions (and where not all
modifications are possible).

The Code you define is NOT the "modified code" you describe here. The FSF is
the only copyright owner of the GPL text, and has not granted authors to
modify the text. The VERBATIM copy of the GPL is required, even if there are
additional permissions stated in the copyright notice required in the
covered work source or binary distribution. The GPL does not cover the text
of the additional offers.

Reread the definition of "covered work" and "modified work" in the GPL. This
covers all but the text of the GPL which MUST remain intact (additional
permissions will be specified outside of the GPL text.