Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> writes:
> BTS wrote:
>>3. Distribute them to the initial developer under the same license --
>> that is, without letting him distribute changes to my patches (such
>> as the application of them to the mainline source) except as
>> further patches.
>
> Ah, the devil's in the details. See, I was wondering whether that was
> necessarily what "the same license" and similar terms in DFSG 3 meant. Maybe
> it is, but maybe not.
>
> What does "distribute under the same terms as the license of the original
> software" mean precisely?
> (a) "grant the same set of permissions to your recipient as the the set of
> permissions *you* received regarding the original software"
> This seems more natural, and I guess it's the interpretation you were using.
>
> (b) "grant the same set of permission->person grants regarding your work as
> were granted regarding the original work"
> This was the interpretation I was thinking about.
>
> I'm sure you can see how this makes a difference to whether discriminatory
> licenses like the QPL satisfy the "same terms" clause.
>
> Suppose package A is licensed to anyone under GPL and to me alone under a
> proprietary license. I can distribute my modifications to a third party,
> granting her the GPL permissions, but I *cannot* grant her the set of
> permissions I recieved. This is considered DFSG-free. So interpretation (a)
> seems to fail here. On the other hand, interpretation (b) seems to work.
>
> I certainly don't claim to be certain here.
I don't see how interpretation (a) fails. Maybe I don't understand
what you mean by a proprietary license -- it looks like it allows you
to make modifications and distribute them. Ah, by "proprietary" you
mean non-copyleft Free, yes?
Then yes -- you need to go get a copy under the GPL, and distribute
your changes under the GPL.
In other words, you can ignore any permission grants you like when
figuring out what "the same terms" are. But you can't ignore
restrictions, and -- I think -- you can only ignore the permission
grants you need to to make this work. If that sounds like an awkward
mental model, that's because it is.
A better model is to think that you must have a free license, and you
must be able to pass the same free license on to others. In the case
of the QPL, you have a free license, and you must pass a *different*
free license on to the initial developer.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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