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From: Barry Margolin <barmar@bbnplanet.com>
Subject: Re: GPL and "free" software
Date: 1999/04/29
Message-ID: <eg1W2.176$jw4.18662@burlma1-snr2>#1/1
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 18:10:18 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,gnu.misc.discuss
Originator: barmar@bbnplanet.com (Barry Margolin)
Date: 1999-04-29T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <wccbtg7o3e2.fsf@world.std.com>,
Robert A Duff  <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
>Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com> writes:
>
>>... Actually people are always a bit surprised
>> that when you put something in the PD, it is perfectly
>> OK for someone to take it, make a minor change, copyright
>> the result, and sell it as a proprietary program.
>
>Having done so, does this restrict anyone's right to use the original
>work as they see fit?  Or is the person who copyrighted the result
>merely copyrighting the "derived work"?  Or merely the changes?

I believe they're copyrighting the derived work.  Of course, if they find a
copy of the original, they're free to do with t as they wish, so the
copyright notice only protects the changes strongly.  It protects the rest
of the work only insofar as the recipient doesn't look around for
alternatives.

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@bbnplanet.com
GTE Internetworking, Powered by BBN, Burlington, MA
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