David Turner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, 2003-03-09 at 14:49, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Scripsit Mark Rafn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > 1) can software that forces a recipient to distribute it to non-recipient > > > users still be considered free? > > > > > My answers are "no" and "no". > > > > True. Ever since I started reading debian-legal, one of the tests > > applied when we consider the freedom of a license has been, "can it be > > used in a business?" > > That depends on the type of business, doesn't it? GPL'd software can't > be made into proprietary software, and I see this issue as little > different.
The word "proprietary" is a red-herring. We thought we all knew what it meant, but maybe we will disagree about it just as we will disagree about what counts as free. If "proprietary" means "you can make money from it", then GPL'd software is manifestly proprietary, because all kinds of people make all kinds of money from it. Even from the act of selling copies and doing nothing else. So it means something like "you can't restrict the freedoms of others with the license", and the question is Whom? And the answer that free software has always spoken of the freedom of the possessor of the copy. Not the freedom of other people, unconnected, on other continents. > The question is, then, whether (2)(d) is a hoop. I think it, or some > variant of it, is such a minimal hoop that it doesn't fail DFSG 3. You're counting the cost of publication; not the fact that it outright prohibits Fred the Lawyer from using and modifying the software. A good test is: is there a whole useful category of software (defined functionally) that is ruled out tout court by the licensing restriction? And the answer is, yes: software which implements particular legal advice.
