Re: Open Software License v2.1

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 21, 2004 at 03:35:16PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> Because it's a copyright license.  If I give away all these freedoms
>> with respect to my work, then I should really be giving them away.  If
>> I'm only giving them away contingent on others with rights to the work
>> giving theirs, I should negotiate that in an appropriately smoky back
>> room -- and until all those show up freely, the software isn't free.
>
> You seem to be describing the difference between a public domain work
> and a copyleft work, with the claim that copyleft software isn't free.
>
> Can you express your concept differently, in a way which doesn't include
> this kind of nonsense?

This isn't nonsense.  A copyleft license unambiguously releases rights
for me to modify and distribute.  I don't have to sacrifice *anything
at all* which I had otherwise.  This copy-to-patentleft sort of
licence says I have to refrain from enforcing the patent rights which
I had independent of the work, or I don't get a copyright license.
That's no good.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu