> Scripsit Wichert Akkerman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Previously Henning Makholm wrote: > > > > I think this is non-free. It means that people without net access > > > cannot receive the software on disks from a friend and later give > > > the friend back a bugfixed version. > > > Does it say `immediately' or `electronically' ? > > It says: > > | (c) You must make Source Code of all Your Deployed Modifications > | publicly available under the terms of this License, including the > | license grants set forth in Section 3 below, for as long as you > | Deploy the Covered Code or twelve (12) months from the date of > | initial Deployment, whichever is longer. You should preferably > | distribute the Source Code of Your Deployed Modifications > | electronically (e.g. download from a web site); and > > There may be a loophole in "preferably" (which I didn't notice > before). However, I'm inclined to think that even > > ?| You must agree to give your modifications to anyone who sends > ?| you a floppy disk and a SASE within one year. > > would be non-free, simply because it requires the user to keep his > modifications around at all. For example, it means that a fire or a > disk crash may place the user in legal jeopardy - it is certainly > unreasonable if the licence effectively requires that users invest > in back-up hardware and fireproof storage for his backup tapes.
This argument seems to keep the software out of Debian altogether. I don't think that Debian keeps every single modification around for 12 months. There can be a number of updates in rapid succession. We keep the modifications for the current version, but not all of the older versions. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
