On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 12:20:37PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote: > On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 01:21:25AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > > I'll certainly throw my hat in in favour of "to upstream" being worse than > > "source if binaries". > > As will I, but I'll also claim that "to upstream" is still not non-free. > > > Firstly, there's an "advancing freedom" argument -- > > ensuring recipients have source code (if they want it) has a great practical > > advantage to freedom. I hope you agree with that (if not, we have more > > fundamental disagreements than this small matter). > > It could very easily be argued that by forcing distribution to an upstream > author that they will possibly release the code to the public where the > downstream recipient may choose to keep such code private.
And it could work the other way. Hell, in a licence under current discussion, there's an explicit licence term to allow upstream to sell my changes under a different licence of their choosing. That seems like it's quite useful for an upstream who wanted to take my modifications private... > > Next, there's the issue of cost -- presumably it is of trivial cost (or even > > profitable) to me to distribute to my recipient, because otherwise I > > wouldn't be doing it. It's unlikely that distributing source alongside the > > binaries will significantly increase that cost -- and the GPL (the most > > common example of this form of distribution) specifically allows the > > recouping of distribution costs for source. However, it may not be a > > trivial cost to distribute changes back to the original author -- in cases > > previously hypothesised, it may even be illegal. It is also unlikely to be > > trivial to determine what cost I may incur in sending the changes back > > upstream at the time I decide to exercise my granted permissions. > > It's fairly unlikely that the cost of distributing changes to the original > author will be that significant. Desert island and other corner case scenarios > aside that is. A couple of years in prison isn't that costly? Because that's what I'd imagine you'd be facing for unauthorised export to an embargoed country. > > Finally, there is the matter of choice. I can choose who I distribute my > > modified version to, and hence who receives the source. I cannot choose to > > send my modifications upstream -- I am compelled to if I wish to exercise my > > granted permissions. You may argue that I can avoid sending changes > > upstream by not making changes, but that's a bollocks argument -- if I > > cannot exercise the rights guaranteed to be available by the DFSG for a free > > licence, then that licence is not free. > > But the idea of sending changes downstream also constrains freedoms, just in a > different fashion. I think this argument is invalid because while you may have > the freedom to associate with only certain people under the GPL, you do not > have the freedom to associate with them in exactly the way you want. It's a matter of degrees and of resultant benefit. A recipient with binaries but no source has a *lot* less freedom than a recipient with binaries and source. An upstream author without my modifications has only a bit less freedom than an upstream with my mods. Furthermore, it is a loss to the community (or people I distribute to, if you like) if I do not make the modifications to the software because I would be forced to send my modifications upstream. - Matt
