On Sun, Jul 25, 2004 at 10:41:47PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
>
> >DFSG 3 was intended to forbid licensors from placing themselves in a
> >specially advantaged position. If not, why doesn't DSFG 3 simply say:
> >
> > The license must allow modifications and derived works.
> >
> >=2E..hmm?
>
> It did in the first draft. The language that ended up appearing in the
> final form only turns up after Bruce went off to discuss things with ESR
> (there was some sort of ncurses licensing fun going on at the time -
> ncurses didn't allow distribution of modified works. The phrasing of
> what was at that point DFSG 1 but ended up being split into several
> different clauses was apparantly designed to make sure that ESR was
> happy).
>
> There's no discussion of /why/ there was the change of language - it's
> not clear that it was supposed to make any substantive change to the
> meaning. I think we'd have to ask Bruce to have any real idea.
Okay. Given the above, is your belief that the words added to DFSG 3 ("and
must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of
the original software.") don't actually mean anything?
I would concede that I have a weaker case if they are just meaningless
noise words.
Are they?
--
G. Branden Robinson | Nixon was so crooked that he needed
Debian GNU/Linux | servants to help him screw his
branden@debian.org | pants on every morning.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Hunter S. Thompson
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