OT - Closing Off An Open-Source Product

[Chris Watson]

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> > On the other hand, if I take a public domain work, change one line, or
> > one word, or one character, then slap a copyright notice on it, I have a
> > legitimate copyright on the derived work.  Someone is free to do what
> > they want with the original (is they find it); but they do not have the
> > right to use my derived work unless they are licensed to do so.
>
> This is not correct.  If your contribution is sufficiently insubstantial
> ("de minimis" in the words of the case law) you will not have a
> legitimate copyright on the derived work.  Your examples fit this
> category of unacceptable claim.

I believe this is correct in the case of GPL and other plauge licenses.
No matter how much or little you change of a GPL app, if one letter is
still original its all got to be GPL'ed. Nice way for the FSF to respect
you're hard work. By forcing a license on you.

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- -Chris Watson         (316) 326-3862 | FreeBSD Consultant, FreeBSD Geek
Work:              scanner at jurai.net | Open Systems Inc., Wellington, Kansas
Home:  scanner at deceptively.shady.org | http://open-systems.net
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