Re:Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before
by itchitawa on Saturday September 28, 2013 @11:40PM
(#6464022)
I just discovered this is a popular political debate so shouldn't be in HN. I do understand how licenses work, just take issue with using the word "free" for something that has artificial restrictions. This comes from frustration of running up against brick walls of "no, you're not allowed to use our software for that" when I tried to use the so-called free software.
> You're not allowed to ... or remove the license agreement
No license agreement allows you as a recipient to ignore the license. At best, you can redistribute a "all right reserved" copyrighted work, while you yourself follows the license. At no point can you actually remove a license and then use it in a way that require authorized permission under copyright law.
You would also have a hard time finding such copyright license. Both BSD and MIT requires that the license are kept in all copies. Removing the license there would be as illegal as it would be to remove the GPL.
Simply put: if you get sued for copyright violation, its the license that the accused must raise in defense. Removing it is guarantied to be illegal except in rare situations such as wtfpl.