Re: License Islamic Holy material

[Abdalla Alothman <abdalla at pheye dot net>]

Salam,

On Wednesday 11 October 2006 09:36 am, Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya wrote:

> Before I state my opinion on the subject, lets take an anology. Let's
> take the Great Wall of China.

I think a car is more practical. You have the car, a person who has a
photograph of the car and another person who makes a painting of the
car.

Remember, a license is an authorization to use something. None of
those people are using -- or will use -- the car and none of the viewers
of the photograph or the painting will use the car.  But what happens
when the photographer takes a picture of the artist's painting and
puts his name on the photograph? That's where we should look.

But consider the Quran, what can you possibly do with the Quran
that comes with  a license and how will that usage differ from the
unlicensed version? In your analogy (which we have trimmed down
from the Great Wall to a car to show how a "thing" is being used)
there's a difference between the car and its picture, or the wall and
its picture. But what will be the difference in usage between the
unlicensed and a licensed version of the Quran?

I see no difference. All would be studied, recited, searched (we also
do manual searches in a hardcopy of the Quran), and so on

> There can be many types/medium of representation. The problem we have
> is to maintain it's integrity, and to have a correct license is a
> start (it won't solve all of the problem)

It wont solve any problem at all. A license will not stop a malicious person
from adding, deleting, or modifying the Quran if he or she wants to. But a
message digest would tell us if something like that ever happens even if
it is a space (deleted, inserted, or substituted). A license expects a person
with a good will on the other side of the agreement; people who want to
malign a certain piece of work usually do not have a good will to respect
the license.

Salam,
Abdalla Alothman