Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 10:02:05PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> No, the same thing does not happen with the GPL. Trolltech can take
> contributions under the QPL and include it both in the free X11
> version and the (very expensive) Windows version. If you tried to do
> that with the GPL, you would have to make the Windows version GPL'd as
> well.
No, I don't think they can do that. The permission grant in QPL#3b
says "provided such versions remain available under these terms in
addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer", which
only seems to allow them to release it under other terms *in addition
to* the QPL. Any versions they incorporate the patch into must remain
available under the terms of the QPL; they could only incorporate it
into the Windows version if that version was available under those terms.
Hence, they can't additionally release it under the GPL, because the
software retains a restriction "must be additionally available under
the terms of the QPL", and the GPL forbids that restriction. They
couldn't quite release it under the MIT license, because it would
actually be under the MIT license with a rider that it must also be
available under the QPL's terms (which would still render it GPL-
incompatible).
So, it doesn't actually allow the initial author to take the work
proprietary, unless I'm reading QPL#3b incorrectly; if you think I am,
I'd appreciate an explanation.
I believe this is non-free because it requires me to grant rights to my
modifications that I did not receive for the original work, which I
believe fails DFSG#3--I can't redistribute under the same terms as the
license of the original software.
> > > > Also, this clause allow upstream to apply the patch to his tree
> > > > without over burdening him to keep two separate trees.
If patches are a burden for the initial author, they're a burden for
other people modifying it, too. Either it's acceptable for both, or
it's unacceptable for both, which is why many of us find this "you
have to use patches, you may never distribute a clean, pre-patched
tree, and you must allow me to apply *your* patches all I want" license
offensive.
> > It is totally irresponsable to suggest this mere days before the
> > sarge freeze, and only shozs you have no grasp on the realities of
> > debian release management.
>
> Bugs have to be fixed, no matter when they are found.
Apparently Sven thinks that the "realities of debian release management"
is allowed to override the Social Contract. Sven is mistaken.
--
Glenn Maynard
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