On Sunday, December 04, 2011 9:29 PM, "David Prévot" <taf...@debian.org> wrote: > are we going to pretend that apt is non-free because we can't > use it on a desert Island, since there is no ftp.desertisland.debian.org > official mirror available?
There's a big difference between requiring a service that has a free software implementation... and one that doesn't. Assuming my Island has adequate computing resources and unlimited free software, it probably has an FTP server somewhere with Debian's distribution. Unless, of course... Debian isn't using free software? The problem is remote dependencies that lack a free implementation and a changeable end-point. On Sunday, December 04, 2011 3:55 PM, "Joey Hess" <jo...@debian.org> wrote: > A user is already making that choice when they choose to install a > facebook client (unless the client's description doesn't say it uses > facebook!) -- but if we had a way to represent network dependencies, > it could be used all the way up the stack to DNS servers if we wanted to. Well, there's an issue here as well. If an application depends upon a remote web service, implicitly included in that application's licensing is the terms of service from the remote web service? Hence, the license for an application dependent upon a Web-API proposed to Debian should in my opinion also include the appropriate TOS of the Web-API. I doubt the TOS of Twitter, Facebook or Google would pass. If such programs are GPLv3, I'd go further and say that Debian has no right to distribute the work since source code for the Whole Work is not included in the distribution (5c). If one claims the Whole Work is simply the wrapper, then I've got dozens of proprietary libraries I'd like to submit. No only can I keep my service proprietary, but I can track users, charge them, and best of all... it's free software. Best, Clark -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1323051764.3373.140661007401...@webmail.messagingengine.com
