Re: Open Software License v2.1
On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 05:25:52PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 02:46:17PM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > I believe the change to section 10 of the licence is sufficient to address
> > the objection to that section in the original summary. Is there consensus
> > on this?
>
> No, the clause hasn't really changed. It's still non-free for all the
> same reasons.
No, it has changed. There are multiple points of view about anti-patent
clauses; this clause doesn't address all of them, but it does address
some.
Some people think they can be okay, but that this original license was
too broad.
Some others think they're inherently non-free.
> > I further believe the objection to item #5 in the original summary
> > is spurious. As admitted in the summary, the DFSG does not prohibit this.
>
> It admits no such thing. The DFSG does not explicitly prohibit a whole
> range of things; they're implicitly prohibited as being too obviously
> non-free to be worth mentioning. They generally fall under clauses 1
> and 3, as restrictions on distribution or modification.
I agree that the DFSG prohibits things it doesn't explicitly mention.
However, you seem to be claiming that everything the DFSG prohibits
that it doesn't mention explicitly is "too obviously non-free to be
worth mentioning". This seems to imply that everything which is non-
free and not mentioend in the DFSG is obvious.
This simply isn't true. You know this, from participation; many of
these things take long and careful consideration to figure out.
The DFSG doesn't enumerate all non-free restrictions because it's
impossible--people are always finding creative new ways to restrict
freedom--not because they're "obvious".
> > The Dissident test is under question and does not appear to have broad
> > support within Debian as an additional DFSG guideline, so the objection
> > to item #9 is irrelevant.
Making questionable, unestablished assertions and then blowing off serious
objections is not an effective argument tactic.
--
Glenn Maynard
Reply to: