Richard Stallman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Not having source is a mere inconvenience; you can always decompile the > program, read the assembly, translate it back into C, etc. Not being > able to distribute the program is only an inconvenience; you can always > rewrite it from scratch. > > Those words are simply an indirect way of declining to recognize the > difference between loss of freedom and practical inconvenience.
Can you explain the difference for me, as you understand it? Perhaps we are using the terms in different ways. > Where we draw the line, when judging licenses as free or not, is > whether you can practically speaking make the code or the manual do > the substantive job you want. If license restrictions make it > impossible to make the technical changes you want, then the license is > non-free. If they make it possible, but with conditions you might not > necessarily like, it is free but with a practical inconvenience. This definition isn't adequate by itself. For example, a software license might say "you can modify this software all you want, as long as you send me $10." That's not a free software license: but it is still the case that the license terms do not make it *impossible* to make a certain technical change. They do it with a condition that we don't like--indeed, a condition that we absolutely reject! So perhaps you could explain how you understand that case? There are clearly conditions which don't *prevent* technical changes, but "merely" attach annoying restrictions--and yet, which make it nonfree. So how do you decide that "you must distribute invariant text" is a mere practical inconvenience, and "you must send me $10" makes it nonfree? (Remembering, please, that in both cases the license doesn't *prohibit* making a technical change.) > So what divides "egregious practical inconveniences" and "non-free"? > > The practical inconveniences of the GFDL are similar to those Debian > accepts from other licenses that we agree are free. They are not > egregious. Can you give examples of such terms that we accept from other licenses? Thomas
