Re: Dissident versus ASP

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:

>     If your program is not distributed to anyone, then the license cannot
>     require you to distribute it to anyone (no matter how many people
>     use it or for what purpose, etc).
> 
> Which is to say that, if accepted, the Dissident test and the practical
> concerns we have about providing source over SMS and such, imply that
> no free license can ever close the ASP loophole.

Since there are fifteen things floating around, each of which gets
called "the ASP loophole", it's hard to be certain.

But with suitable caveats, I think you are probably right.

I agree that the people who might exploit "the ASP loophole" are big
nasties, the problem is that I can think of a jillion little cases of
people who are *not* big nasties, who get massively hampered by the
proposed closures.

(See my recent "Antartic research" example.)