Re: GPL version 4.

[Darren Reed <darrenr%netbsd.org@localhost>]

Richard,

Why is it that nobody else can create something and call it GPLv4?
Or for that matter "GNU General Public License"?

If that name is not in use, my understanding is that anyone can create
a work and give it that label.  It might be confusing and lead to lots
of hate mail from others, but that's another story.

Or would you claim that GPLv4 is somehow protected by trademark
intellectual property law?  (This could be interesting, given
that the term GPLv4 is not currently in active use by the FSF.)

Now my understanding is that your document that is titled:
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version x
is the sole work that is covered by copyright and that if
someone else were to create a new work that did not borrow
any text from the FSF's document then there would be no breach
of copyright.

To the best of my knowledge, you do not have any copyright
entitlements over the title of the document, only the contents,
thus anyone can create something and call it "GNU GPL" or the
"GNU General Public License", even if the contents are completely
different.  Or would you attempt to coerce them into not doing
this by claiming that GNU and GPL were somehow protected by
trademark law? This would be interesting in that none of the
use of these terms is ever accompanied by either (r) or (tm).

I'll add that I'm not a lawyer, so I'm quite prepared to be wrong,
but I will add that the US Government's web page on copyright quite
clearly points out that copyright does not cover titles:

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

Darren