Leverage in licensing discussions (was: [DRAFT] resolving DFSG violations)

[Ben Finney <ben+debian@benfinney.id.au>]

Josselin Mouette <joss@debian.org> writes:

> Distributing the non-free firmware with regular package updates in
> non-free [has a particular effect]
> 
> But the most important thing is that it gives leverage to convince
> manufacturers to actually distribute the firmware with a free
> license.

How does this follow? Surely if the firmware is already being
distributed by the project, that's a *smaller* incentive to the vendor
to change the license.

The position “Your license isn't acceptable to us; please change the
license so that we can begin distributing to our users” is surely
stronger than “We're distributing your firmware and all our users can
get it, but please change the license so that it's slightly easier to
get”. In the latter case, the vendor stands to gain less from making
the license free, so that's less leverage.

Yet that seems at odds with what you're saying. What's missing?

-- 
 \        “Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code |
  `\     will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.” —John |
_o__)                                                         F. Woods |
Ben Finney