Re: FWD: Bug#121916: analog should be in non-free
Stephen Turner wrote:
> I think that the original complaint, and some of the responses, are missing
> the point. It is explicitly permitted to charge someone for sending them the
> program, and "reasonable" does not specify any limit. This seems to satisfy
> the DFSG perfectly well to me.
The way I and others have read "reasonable" is that it does specify a
limit of some sort. That might not be your intent, but my dictionary
says: "not excessive or immoderate; within due limits; proper". And it
isn't clear how the limit should be interpreted -- is it what's
reasonable to you, to society at large, or to a judge? Compare with the
artistic license which explicitly defines "Reasonable copying fee" (in a
fairly useless way that anyone can get around, but still).
> If you're still not convinced (is there any consensus on this?)
I think there's some consensus that the license is unclear and may have
freeness issues. We're all over the map as to the specifics.
> I'm willing to change the first sentence to:
> > You may charge for distributing the program, but you must not do anything
> > to suggest to the person to whom it is distributed that analog is anything
> > other than free software.
>
> I actually don't think that this changes the meaning at all, but I do think
> that it weakens the emphasis.
Ok, I see what you're doing. I agree that, given the way you were
meaning that "reasonable" to be used, there is no change. It's a lot
clearer and non subject to misinterpretation or worrys about what is
reasonable with this change.
I say, do it! There is, unfortunatly, some time pressure on me to get
this resolved soon, since we are about to freeze part of debian, which
includes analog.
--
see shy jo
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