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GPLv3

# DISABLES ADDITIONAL ACTIONS FOR DRAFTERS

Comment 697: A hammer with a notice stating "you cannot use me to break people's heads"

This Comment is part of the discussion on:
#1129: (fontana) Violates principle of no discrimination against fields of use

This Comment is part of the discussion on:
#1133: (fontana) Concerns regarding prohibition of legitimate uses of software


Regarding the text: Regardless of any other provision of this license, no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users' privacy
In section: gpl3.drm.p0.s3
Submitted by: frx on 2006-01-31 at 18:46 EST
4 agree: proski, neroden, andrewpm, fej
noted by frx on 2006-01-31 at 18:46 EST:

Does this mean that I cannot modify a "licensed program" in order to implement some illegal privacy-invading feature and distribute the resulting work? This is an unacceptable restriction on the functionality of modified versions and discriminates against possible uses of the work. I'm definitely *against* privacy invasions, but this should not belong in a copyright license. If the privacy invasion is indeed illegal, there are already laws to forbid that behavior. The license should *not* say that you cannot distribute a modified program that performs illegal operations. I suggest dropping this restrictions, especially in light of http://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html
NoteUrl http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gplv3-draft-1?Query=%20Creator%20=%20'frx'%20 changed to gplv3-draft-1 by orion4 (admin) on 2006-02-15 at 14:11 EST
noted by proski on 2006-03-15 at 14:01 EST:

I agree. GPL is hurting secirity research and freedom of speech here. If I want to demonstrate how software could be used to invade privacy, I should be allowed to create an exploit and possibly distribute it via mailing lists. I don't want to be prosecuted for copyright violation when reporting privacy-related security holes.

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