Manifestation of Assent

[Lawrence E. Rosen]

Hi Greg,

I specifically did not address the GPL.  Its authors expect it to be
treated simply as a copyright license.  Their opinion is available at
the FSF.org website.  

I do not believe I have the right to make unauthorized copies or
derivative works of GPL-licensed software.  Just in case it's needed,
the previous sentence is a manifestation of my assent.  

I speak only about licenses that are unabashedly contracts.

/Larry Rosen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Pomerantz [mailto:gmp at alumni.brown.edu] 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 10:10 PM
> To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com
> Cc: 'Noah Levitt'; license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: Manifestation of Assent 
> 
> 
> > > From: Noah Levitt [mailto:nlevitt at computer.crynwr.com] On
> > > In your opinion, would the act of distributing a piece of
> > > (say) GPL software or a derivative of it be sufficient to 
> > > indicate assent, assuming that the distributor in question 
> > > obtained the software by downloading a source tarball via 
> > > ftp, without click-wrap, and that the tarball had a file 
> > > called COPYING with the full text of the GPL?
> > 
> > The GPL folks think it is sufficient.  I don't agree, but I'm not a 
> > judge nor am I your lawyer.  :-)
> 
> Larry, I've been following this discussion with interest, 
> trying to understand your position with respect to the GPL. 
> Are you arguing that you have the right to make copies of or 
> derivative works based on, say gcc, from some source other 
> than a license granted to you by the GPL? In more general 
> terms, are you saying that there are rights to the code to 
> gcc that you have that would be prohibited to you if you 
> agreed to the terms of the GPL? What specific terms of the 
> GPL take rights away from you that you would otherwise have 
> in the absense of a license? (for example, the warranty 
> disclaimer may be one, if you assume you have a default right 
> to a warranty on all software you use). Thanks
> 
> Greg Pomerantz
> 
> 

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