On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 01:38:33PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: > On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 01:23:11PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > > It's that last bit which is non-free. If they did something like the > > FSF, and asked for copyright assignment, that would be free. > > > > If they did something like best practical, and warned that they would > > consider anything submitted to them by its author to include an > > implied BSD-ish license, that would be free. > > Any code submitted upstream to the author will have the QPL attached to it, > and > thus will not become hidden or proprietary should upstream choose to > distribute > it.
Read 3b again. It states that the initial developer gets a special licence to sell my work to people under different licences, as well as release it under the QPL. It's hardly a stretch to work out a case where my modifications might be nominally released under the QPL, but not readily available, whilst it gets wide distribution under some proprietary licence. > > But when they make it a condition of the license, a fee I must pay in > > order to distribute modifications, then it is no longer free software. > > This brings us back full circle to the definition of a fee. I still > contend that by forcing downstream distribution of source, the GPL imparts > a fee of its own, and yet we accept that as free. I consider that to be a fee consistent with the expansion of Free Software. In order to distribute modified binaries, I have to licence my source to the recipient as well. That has clear freedom-enhancing properties (Now With Freesol, for added Freeness!) The QPL says I must give a carte-blanche licence to the initial developer of the work I modify. I don't see how that is enhancing Free Software. I don't particularly like to call it a fee as such, especially since DFSG #1 says "fee for such sale", and we're not necessarily selling the work. But I cannot in good conscience say that just because the letter of the DFSG doesn't say it, that it's automatically Free. Especially in this case -- forcing me to licence my modifications to some special party specially. If we read DFSG #3 with an implied "only" in there -- "must allow them to be distributed [only] under the same terms" -- then forcing me to give a special licence to someone else is bad. My phrasing there is bad -- it makes it sound as though the DFSG then prohibits licences which say "licence your modified version as you like", but hopefully you get the idea. - Matt
