Re: The GPL and Patents: ROFL

[Alan Mackenzie]

In gnu.misc.discuss Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> wrote:

> See? Copyright doesn't protect the idea in the program, but it
> protects the text of the program.

No, it doesn't.  It _restricts_ the text of the program.  The program is
not generally threatened by anything which could damage it, so the word
"protect" is silly.  If anything, copyright's restrictions leave the
program less protected, since the danger of loss of the program is more,
the fewer the copies which exist of it.

> I guess the anti-GPL cranks feel it necessary to take their game
> up a notch, from failing to understand law to failing to understand
> English.

Hmm.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).