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Nick Mailer nickm at cream.org
Fri Jan 25 15:18:56 UTC 2002


On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 04:11:43PM +0100, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> 
> >From nickm at cream.org Fri Jan 25 01:55:38 2002
> 
> >> kI have been told that of course, I can stop this person immediately to 
> >> continue to break my license but I am only able to get a finacial compensation 
> >> for what this person did illegaly.
> >> 
> 
> >No. You seem to think that once their modified version is created,
> >then the best you can expect is some sort of compensation. This is NOT
> >the case. German Law, I'm sure, is similar to other systems whose
> >countries are signatories to the Berne Conventions. As such, they will
> >be required to Cease and Desist from distributing their modified
> >version of your software. This is a very clear copyright issue. I
> >suggest you make it clear to them that you will not be intimidated or
> >bamboozled, and get in touch with Profesor Moglen as soon as possible!
> 
> Well so you seem to agree:
> 
> While it _is_ possible to stop them to distribute the modified version 
> in binary form, it is not possible to force them to undisclose their
> part of the source. So GPL gives no special help to enforce the freedom
> of the sources.
> 

Oh sure, they can hang on to their "modifications" - let us say they
changed a line from 
int fish = 1;
to
long fish = 1;

They would be able to "keep" the line "long fish = 1;" and that's it.
They'd have to agree not to use any of your code. So, what's the point
in keeping these "modifications" if they have no right to the thing it
modifies? :-)



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