On Jun 20, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
You specifically have the right, in the US, at least, to make
changes that are "an essential step in the utilization of the
computer program".
Indeed, there are such things as fair use and exceptions to
copyright. We've already covered this.
Which turns out to include adding improvements you need.
That's quite interesting. It's a far cry from the Free Software
Definition's freedom #1, but no doubt this is another positive step
from US courts.
And the court noted that no damage was done to the copyright holder
by
someone else modifying their own copy of a work.
... because the copy was only for internal use. Quite unrelated with
the original points of this debate, that's all about distribution.
But no doubt it's a good thing. This is a reasoning that finds
support in the original rationale for copyrights, but the fact that
they have to resort to contortions such as thinking of "damage" shows
how far behind the original rationale was left :-(
--
Alexandre Oliva
http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist oliva(a){lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member ¡Sé Libre! =>
http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva(a){redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}