Re: request-tracker3: license shadiness

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> writes:

> Is it still non-free even though you are not required to submit patches
> to them for inclusion?  If you opted to never send patches upstream, the
> condition would not affect you at all.  Note that simply distributing
> the patches could not be considered as "submitting for inclusion in the
> work"; you would have to explicitly submit a patch to upstream for
> inclusion.  Many upstream authors refuse to include submitted patches at
> all, or require the copyright be explicitly assigned to them, or require
> some other arbitrary condition; this one just states that they will take
> submitted patches and assume they hold the copyright on them.

It's a fine policy -- I don't use it myself, but it's sure helped the
FSF out, which is a good thing.  But that policy should not be written
into the license.  This clause, even if changed to "submitted for
inclusion by the copyright owner" is still the sort of thing which
requires agreement from that person -- it's a contract, not just a
license grant.  That makes me reluctant to consider it free.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu