Here are RMS's comments on the Diablo license previously posted. It seems he agrees with me that it isn't DFSG free.
Thomas Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Please forward this to the list: > > > In the Diablo license, section 5 is the controversial part: > > > 5. When this software or any work derived from this software is used in a > > commercial product or bundled with a commercial product, the vendor must > > also produce the program this software is derived from for either the > > Linux > > or FreeBSD operating systems. The Linux or FreeBSD version of the > > product > > must be sold for substantially the same amount of money as the product > > for other platforms, and the Linux or FreeBSD releases must be kept up to > > date with the releases for other platforms. > > 1. I believe the requirement about bundling is legally unenforcible in > the US. Maybe more than just unenforcible; using copyright to > place conditions on separate independent works is considered "abuse > of copyright", and can void the copyright entirely. (I am not a > lawyer, though.) > > 2. If we assume "or bundled with a commercial product" has been > deleted, to eliminate that problem, the result is not in my view a > free software license, because it puts substantive restrictions on > the functionality of modified versions people can release. > > 3. There is no such thing as a "Linux operating system." He is > referring to GNU/Linux, and calling it by the wrong name. That is > not right. As developers of Debian GNU/Linux, you probably already > know about this issue, but if Matthew Dillon does not know, you can > refer him to http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html as an > explanation. > > 4. Singling out GNU/Linux (but which distro? any one arbitrarily > chosen?) and FreeBSD, to the exclusion of other free operating > system versions, seems rather narrow. > > It may be possible to convince him that allowing distribution under > the GNU GPL is ok. That would allow someone to make a GPL-covered > modified version that only runs on Windows, but someone else would be > able to take the source code and port it back to GNU/Linux (or any > other system). It seems likely that Dillon would consider this a > sufficient way of coopeating, and would agree to allow distribution > under the GPL as well. > > If he agrees with this approach in principle, a simple method that > would do this, and solve problems 1 and 3, is: > > * Delete "or bundled with a commercial product". > > * Correct "Linux" to "GNU/Linux" > > * Then release under a disjunctive dual license whose alternatives are > this license (corrected) and the GNU GPL.
