Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance
Rob Lanphier <robla@real.com> writes:
> On Tue, 2004-07-27 at 10:48, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> Rob Lanphier <robla@real.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Let me get this straight. The freedom that you are trying to protect is
>> > the freedom to drag an ecosystem contributor into court and sue them?
>>
>> Think about the reverse situation, where a free software developer
>> using software under the RPSL discovers that it breaches a patent he
>> holds. Why should his legitimate case result in the removal of his
>> rights to do anything with the code?
>
> Why should we license any copyrights or patents to him when he's not
> willing to reciprocate? It's his right to charge us cash for using his
> patent, but then it's our right to then demand he pay us for using our
> copyrighted and patented intellectual property.
Well, no reason, really. The same no reason that you license your
copyrights to those who aren't willing to reciprocate. You have every
right to make that demand -- but then what you're doing isn't Free
Software, just a very generous shared source program.
It's still a cool thing, it's just not Debian's cool thing.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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