On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 11:05:55AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >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. > > The reason I feel this makes approximately no real difference is the > following: > > 1) We (that is, Debian) generally assume that copyleft licenses > strengthen free software more than BSD style licenses. > > 2) In the case of a BSD-style license with a QPL-style forced > distribution upstream clause, there would be no need for a QPL-style > permissions grant. Upstream could subsume it into their closed product > anyway.
But I could do the same to their work under a BSD licence. I can't do that with a QPL-licenced work. It's all about equality. It's not necessarily a *good* outcome, but it's a *better* outcome. - Matt
