Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: Copyright vs. Copyleft

[Lee Braiden]

Alex Hudson wrote:

> Software 'A' under the BSD licence is free for me because I get the 
> freedom to change and redistribute the software; the four FSF freedoms 
> are there. The fact that software 'B' which is derived from 'A' is not 
> free software does not affect the freeness, for me.

But what I'm saying is, without copyright law, you DON'T have those 
rights.  Someone can hand you a binary, and if you want anything else, 
you have to reverse-engineer it.  The original copy is as free as it 
ever was, but there is no guarantee that even distributors of that same 
copy will provide source, unless it is legally required, or at least 
socially required.

> Are you saying that you consider BSD-licensed software not to be free software?
>  
No.  In the larger sense of software, that may be true: an application 
that was released under a BSD license could easily become non-free, in 
later versions.  So, while individual versions might be free, the 
"software", in it's wholistic sense, would not be.

But BSD was *your* topic, and that was not my question.  I was asking 
why you feel that a BSD license is similar to the complete lack of 
copyright.  If, indeed, it was you who suggested that; my modal email 
client won't let me check :/  Wouldn't BSD just be released without any 
rights at all, if that was the case?

- Lee.