FoxPro & Wine :)

[Patrik Stridvall]

> On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
> 
> > EULAs tries to restrict, yes. However a copyright license 
> does as well, 
> > if it, like most copyleft licenses, tries to take back the rights
> > you have already given up by allowing redistribution of the work
> > in the first place.
> 
> This is the source of the confusion. I don't take back anything, as
> I don't allow limitless redistribution. 

Since you allow everybody that wants the work to legally get it for free,
that is just meaningless game withs words.

Even if not everybody can (re)distribute it, enough can to make it for
all intent and purpose a meaningless distiction. See below.

> I allow redistribution only
> under certain condition. It's conditional:
> 	A => B
> You seem to think that one can not use conditionals. This is obviously
> false. "You can do B IF condition A holds" is a very reasonable
> statement. It's basic logic, no cake and no eating involved.

[You don't really expect me to have missed something as
 trivial as that, do you?]

The problem is that you with the LGPL only have conditionals on who
can (re)distribute the work, but no conditional on whom it can be
(re)distributed to.

While, I suppose, you can have a license the regulates this to, even
if the LGPL doesn't, the problem is the doctrine of first sale means
anybody that it can be distributed to can resell (or give) that copy
to anybody that can't be distributed directly to.

Futhermore I would argue that first sale doctrine, for all intent and
purpose, means that you as the copyright holder, can't regulate who
ultimately a copy of your work, ends up with. So any such clause
would be null and void, so no trickery would be needed.

Note that copyright is designed that way on purpose, not as a freak accident.

So now we are back to:
1. You can give your work away for free
2. You can sell your work for a fee
But you can't control whom ultimately recieves and uses your work.

So again:
"You can't both have the cake and eat it"