> > An open-source project is not supposed to change rules at will. The > license > > itself of open source software is often oriented toward this view, > such > > that > > it guarantees people to keep using software they already got, even > when the > > project becomes a completely commercial one. > > > > Wow, not even close. OSS licenses cover what you can do with the > source > code. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Exactly what I meant. Many OSS licenses says you get the permanent right to run the software. If a project becomes commercial and stops free distribution, the user still have the right to use (and modify) its old copy of the software. The company now owning the project can't stop you from doing so. The company doesn't have the right to change the rules at will... Some OSS licenses impede "de facto" a migration from OSS to barely commercial, since no line of the OSS product could be used in the commercial one. But not all the OSS licenses do this. All this OSS licensing game stems from a wider philosophy, which can hardly be coded in laws or legal agreements. It is regarding the freedom of access and use of software. It was meant to contrast emerging (Microsoft) as well as consolidated (IBM, Sun) software monsters, who were willing to gain total control on the software market. I don't believe that the people who made the OSS world so interesting and important would agree on the fact that a database upgrade known to cause a functional kill would be OSS-compliant. Maybe in a court it is. Are we in a court? > And there's nothing stopping you > from > grabbing the clamav source code, rewriting freshclam to ignore updates > past > the 14th of April, and making that available to the world. *THAT* is > the > point of OSS ... you have the freedom to do whatever you want with the > source code. Right. But not because of the source code itself (that is the legal facade). That is because of the functionality it carries. Who care of some megabytes of text? > There's nothing in any OSS license that says the software will always > work, > that the software will be bug free, that all future updates will work > with > any previous version, etc. Infact there isn't. This doesn't mean that the idea of a killer update - a db update, by the way. Not a software one - would be in line with the OSS philosophy. Sure it is with licenses. Sure who put it out will rest with no worries tonight. But to me, its effects clash a bit with OSS philosophy. > > Because the open-source idea is > > all based on freedom. > > > > Not in the way you think it is. _______________________________________________ Help us build a comprehensive ClamAV guide: visit http://wiki.clamav.net http://www.clamav.net/support/ml
