On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 09:45:08PM +0000, Brian M. Carlson wrote:
> Debian has a strong "common law" tradition with regard to the DFSG.
> We interpret it in certain ways to protect people's freedoms.
> You might say that this discriminates against people that are on
> desert islands. Note that vim's license is acceptable even though
> that clause is in there because it states that if it is not possible
> to contact the maintainer to return modifications then the requirement
> ceases.
I don't recall a consensus that this partial exception was sufficient to
satisfy the "desert island" principle. Could you provide a thread reference?
Reading the license, it seems that either section II.2.c ("Provide all
the changes with every copy") or II.2.e ("... distribute the modified Vim
under the GNU GPL version 2 or any later version") is enough (since they're
alternatives to the problematic II.2.a), and I seem to recall that they're
why the license is acceptable, but that option II.2.a alone was not enough.
--
Glenn Maynard
