If you're not sick of licensing yet ...

[Pat McCann]

kragen at dnaco.net (Kragen Sitaker) writes:

> Grant Griffin  <g2 at seebelow.org> wrote:

> >Very interesting.  Some of the extreme cases they considered made me
> >think that licenses like the GPL and MPL which have "forcing functions"
> >(as the article calls them)--wherein the user is obligated to _do_
> >certain things--are completely untenable.

> The GPL requires that the user not do certain things: ...

That was a really silly reply to Grant.  Grant's writing (echoing some
of the language of the article under discussion) relies on the common
sense of people to infer implied clauses which he shouldn't be expected
to have to provide explicitly.

However, since you want to be picky about things, I'll be picky and tell
you why your point is wrong too when someone doesn't give you the
benefit of allowing casual writing.  Specifically, I'm going to
interpret "GPL" as the license (not just the words) that the licensor
grants once the licensee has indicated an acceptance of the license
offer (see GPL clause 5; the very definition of a contract, BTW), say by
modifying the software (same clause).  After the license (the GPL) is
"in force" (there's a reason for that common phrase) the conditions of
the license "forces" the licensee to actively DO and not do certain
things or those non-actions and actions will "terminate your rights
under this License" (see clause 4). (Clause 2a forces me to add change
notices to modified files even if I don't distribute them.)