On Tue, Sep 14, 2004 at 10:53:55PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote: > This whole "consensus" nonsense is just an excuse to discard any > argument without responding to it. Note how it is only ever advanced > by people who want to discard valid arguments; it is never used by > people who want to introduce one.
Freeness questions are not black and white. Rational people can disagree on whether a given restriction is free, due to differences in personal judgement and values, and they can agree on whether it's free but arrive at the conclusion for different reasons. When there are multiple rational answers, consensus helps choose among them. If there was no room for rational disagreement, this list would have a much easier job. Further, the case of "terminating copyright licenses based on patent action specifically against the work" just hasn't been discussed properly. Existing cases have either been patent termination, or been much broader, by applying to patent action unrelated to the software, that made coming to a conclusion for this case irrelevant. I think it warrants discussion, and not your offhanded dismissal. I have no agenda beyond those of free software: I don't expect to be using this type of clause, I have no stake in software using them, and I have no interest in discarding any valid arguments. I don't even have a strong opinion of whether this clause is free or not (though I tend to sympathise with it and have difficulty finding problems in it). -- Glenn Maynard
