On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 03:12:25PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Josh Triplett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>You should not need a technical workaround for a legal problem. > > > > We accept this as free for patch clauses. > > Notice those have a special exception in the DFSG -- such impositions > are non-free in general, but as a particular exception, patch clauses > are Debian-Free.
Right, which indicates that we have nothing in principle against minor technical awkwardnesses. If DFSG 4 didn't explicitly allow patch clauses, somebody might read it as forbidding them. On the other hand, their awkwardness is recognised - we encourage people not to use licenses that require this sort of workaround. > > There's a strong feeling that people should be allowed to do what they > > want if it doesn't involve other people. Private undistributed > > modification falls within this. Distribution, on the other hand, > > is something that is of interest to the original developer. When > > multiple people are involved, there's a belief that they should both > > consent to what's going on. > > Distribution is no more of interest to the original developer than > modification. If I'm distributing to you, what business of the > developer's is it? Well, he has interest in free software, so he can > require that I can give you only free software which derives from his > work. Of course distribution is of interest to the original developer. The original recipient (who I provided the software to) is making a copy of something that I put effort into without necessarily giving me anything in return. > But it doesn't serve Free Software for him to require that I send > *him* a copy too, especially when his interest is in putting out a > proprietary version! So a Free license isn't going to involve the > original author sticking his nose into my private distribution any > more than it involves him interfering with my private modifications -- > that is, to the extent useful for preserving the freeness of the work. In what way does it serve free software to allow people to hoard modifications rather than allow the community to take advantage of them? -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
