Remco: I agree with your comments, I was just speculating on the possible motives for including a "send patches back to me or else" type clause in an otherwise seemingly open/free/libre software release. Although with such a clause, the "right to distribute" arguably is restricted in a "viral" manner, such that EVERY downstream person who receives and patches the software, has to contribute ALL of their distributed patches back upstream directly to the original author. THAT is the onerous part of it in my opinion, and many others on the list have pointed this out as well.
Here is the clause which we have been discussing (I believe, if not then whoops ;-) - see http://www.brics.dk/DSD/implementation.html for the whole license in context. 4.4. If you prepare a Patch which you distribute to anyone else, you shall: (a) Contact AT&T, as may be provided on the Website or in a text file included with the Source Code, and describe for AT&T such Patch; and, (b) Provide AT&T with a copy of such Patch as directed by AT&T, unless you make it generally available on your Internet website, in which case, you shall provide AT&T with the URL of your website and hereby grant to AT&T a non-exclusive, fully-paid up right to create a hyperlink between your website and a page associated with the Website. Of course, in Section 2.1, they note that "AT&T may change the content or URL of the Website, or remove it from the Internet altogether" - which puts the burden on the patchers to keep up with AT&T's location & contact information in order to fulfill the terms of 4.4. This could even function like a termination clause (if they pull the plug on the website, get rid of any trace of the software, &/or don't have any contact info, how could you ever submit patches?). -Eric -----Original Message----- From: Remco Blaakmeer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 6:12 PM To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: AT&T source code agreement On Thu, 23 Mar 2000, Steve Greenland wrote: > On 22-Mar-00, 18:08 (CST), Eric Sherrill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thus there could exist a pseudo-secret distro, given only to one's > > friends or sold to select customers, that the author never finds out > > about, simply through its obscurity. > > But the value of the changes made to such a distribution are probably > low. The whole free software development model is based on have lots of > people use, evaluate, and fix programs. A pseudo-secret distribution wouldn't stay secret for a long period of time, anyway. Every customer would have the right to distribute the whole thing to anybody else (including public ftp sites), effectively making the changes public. Sooner or later, at least one of the customers will do so unless they have a very compelling reason (which may not be included in the license) not to. Remco -- rd1936: 2:05am up 7 days, 7:25, 12 users, load average: 1.56, 1.51, 1.55 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
