On 9/1/07, Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org> wrote:
quoted text
> > In the case of the later 3 files, their copyright notice says:
> >       "at your choice" you may distribute under the terms of the BSD
> >       license or under the terms of the GNU GPL v2
> >
> > So if they chose to distribute those 3 files under the terms of the GNU
> > GPL v2, it is correct to change the copyright notice of those three files
> > alone in order to remove a license that the distributor chose not to use
> > anymore.
>
> Not exactly.  I won't quote from the GPL again, but even the GPL has a
> paragraph about this.  You must pass on the rights you received.  The
> GPL says that passing on only a selection of rights is not fair.  Don't
> trust my words, though, go read the GPL yourself.

One of the really fascinating aspects of this whole thing, at least to
someone with a classic liberal arts education, is how poorly technical
people often perform when faced with natural language text.  Not all
of them, obviously, but it's amazing how often it happens, even with
people whose high intelligence is indisputable.  You see the full
panoply of logical fallacy at work.  They try to do things they would
never try with technical specs.

For example, "you may choose a license for distribution".  There seems
to be an overpowering urge among some to read this as "you may may
choose a license for removal".  This is an obvious non sequitur.  The
reasoning seems to be something like

   premise a:  you may choose BSD or GPL
   premise b:  you may distribute under your chosen license
   conclusion: therefore you may distribute without the other license

Fallacy of Equivocation:  use of a term with two or more meanings, as
in, using "distribute" to mean "alter", or taking "choose A" to mean
"remove B".
Fallacy of Illicit Process: a term in the conclusion has a wider
extension than in the predicate (i.e. going from "some lawyers are
cheats" to "all lawyers are X"); this non sequitur doesn't quite fit
the definition, but it does involve similar chicanery, going from
"choose A" to "choose A and remove B".

I'm sure this bit of faulty reasoning commits a few other fallacies as
well.  In any case, it's amazing how many technical people are willing
to take OR as a synonym for EXCLUSIVE OR.

The only way this will get clarity in the end is in the courts.  In
this case, the people pulling these shenanigans - possibly including
the FSF - richly deserve the RIAA treatment.  Maybe the foundation
should create a fund for defending the license.    (And I'm not even
religious about this stuff - it just really irks may that these people
pontificating  about freedom are willing to behave so selfishly and
disingenuously.  And illegally.)

-gregg