7 Aug
2009
7 Aug
'09
11:05 a.m.
On Friday 07 August 2009 08:56:30 Fons Adriaensen wrote:
On Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 06:51:08AM -0400, Paul Davis
wrote:
Wow, do you live in some sort of utopia?
Law enforcement in numbers of countries routinely seize peoples property when
they are involved in or allegedly involved in crimes when there are no real
victims involved. People's cars and other belonging are routinely seized at
border crossings if someone is attempting to enter a country illegally. They
never get their things back. No courts involved. So much for legal property
rights.
Raymond
For emphasis, I just want to paste that sentence
(and the following
one) again for Raymond, with attribution:
Eben Moglen, attorney for the FSF: "The claim that a GPL violation
could lead to the forcing open of proprietary code that has wrongfully
included GPL'd components is simply wrong. There is no provision in
the Copyright Act to require distribution of infringing work on
altered terms. "
Which makes perfect sense. In a civilised society even
a convicted thief retains all the rights to his legally
acquired property. If any of it has to be seized, for
example to compensate his victims, that action can be
taken only by a court. Not by his victims or some self-
appointed vigilante.