<quote who="Bill Allombert" date="Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 04:15:49PM -0600"> > On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 11:00:00AM -0500, Benj. Mako Hill wrote: > > > > I *do* think that the spirit behind the AGPL and Affero-inspired > > clause in the GPLv3 is fully in line with our principles. *Users* of > > software should be able to modify their software. > > There is the issue of defining *users*. My definition of the user of a > software would be the person that is in control of hardware on which > the software run. The Affero clause actually reduce their ability to > modify their software. I don't think we need to turn this into a semantic argument about the term user. The authors of the free software definition and both versions of the GPL think that users are people who, well, *use* software. "Use" in this case is defined according to the most common dictionary definition of that word. This definition does not, it turns out, mention hardware. You can claim that loss of software freedom only occurs on hardware that is owned or controlled by the victim without claiming that people who use google do not actually *use* their software. I think our collective santity is best served by some consistency in terminology. :) Regards, Mako -- Benjamin Mako Hill mako@debian.org http://mako.cc/
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