Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Scripsit Brian T. Sniffen > > Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Scripsit Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > >> That's good, but only if you're able to modify the Base Format. It is > > >> easy to imagine scenarios where you are able to modify individual > > >> files, but not the validation mechanism. > > > > Could you please imagine one? > > > Sure: I take the Base Format and make a functional change to it, > > removing the option to turn off validation. Now I distribute this > > under your draft LPPL. > > But does that possibility make the original software non-free? Your > argument seems to be that it is possible to make a derived version > that is not free - but that possiblity exists for, say, the BSD > license as well.
The difference is that you be putting your modifications under a different license. Here, you're not changing the license, you're just modifying the code. > > The freeness of a license should be as divorced as possible from > > accidents of implementation. > > Remember that our actual business on debian-legal is not to decide > whether *licenses* are free, but whether actual pieces of *software* > are free. No. It is possible for people to interpret licenses to make them non-free. In that case, the software is really distributed under a different license. They can also avail themselves of parts of a license which make it non-free. But that is the same as having two different versions of a license: free and non-free. Some people choose the free version, and others choose a non-free one. A free license is a free license. > As I said, I agree that it is possible to apply the LPPL > draft in such a way that it results in non-freedom. However, I also > believe that it is possible to apply it in a free way. The situation > is not basically that much different from that of the GFDL. > > You and I can easily agree that it would be better, all other things > being equal, to have licenses that could only be applied in ways that > make the software they apply to free. However, it seems to be > prohibitively complicated to word such a license such that it stays > within the intersection of "what the LaTeX people can live with" and > "what is DFSG-free (at least according to my and Jeff's gut > feelings)". I don't think that it is prohibitively complicated. I think it is impossible. The LaTeX people can't live with a free license. There is too little control. Regards, Walter Landry [EMAIL PROTECTED]
