On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 10:41:24AM +0100, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote:
> Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org>:
>
> > 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.
> >
> > ...hmm?
>
> Perhaps DFSG 3 is looking at it from the point of view of the receiver
> of the modified work rather than the modifer: A creates a QPL work, B
> modifies it and gives the modified version to C. Then C gets the
> modified work under the same licence as the original work was
> distributed. However, if you really want to know how DFSG 3 was
> intended then you must talk to the people who wrote it.
To be honest, I'm less interested in that than in what it is we think it
means today.
I believe we need to permit our interpretations of the DFSG to evolve over
time (because the world of licensing evolves as well), but if we evolve so
much that an entire requirement ("and must allow them to be distributed
under the same terms as the license of the original software.") is
interpreted to be meaningless, we'd better be prepared to defend that
position.
I do not think the first inclination of a newcomer to the DFSG is to regard
those words as being wholly ineffectual.
If they are, we should amend the DFSG to remove them.
Alternatively, if they do mean something, we need to figure out what they
mean. What *does* it mean to be "distributed under the same terms as the
license of the original software"?
--
G. Branden Robinson | Optimists believe we live in the
Debian GNU/Linux | best of all possible worlds.
branden@debian.org | Pessimists fear that this really is
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | the best of all possible worlds.
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