Copyright issues re Debian website

Jimmy Kaplowitz jimmy at spi-inc.org
Tue Mar 4 21:48:41 UTC 2008


On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 01:23:05PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> I'll accept that. I have published on this particular legal myth last 
> year at http://technocrat.net/d/2007/3/22/16651

Your article states your reasoning, which is substantially the same as
your first post to this thread. However, it doesn't cite any legal
authorities at all, whether case law, statutes, or secondary texts. Nor
does it show any evidence that Linus's modifications to his license were
legally valid for code that was not his own, or that changing the
prelude to the GPL2 in the main kernel license file has the effect you
imply it does. I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but just that my
understanding does contradict yours, and that my understanding is based
on a serious effort to become an informed layman. If Debian does decide
to follow your theory or investigate its legal validity, I expect that
all SPI directors, including myself if I am on the board then, will be
willing to get the appropriate legal advice at that time.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy at spi-inc.org

(PS - Please only reply if you have more to add; this thread is getting
long enough already.)


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