Re: Open Software License v2.1
Bernhard R. Link writes:
> * Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> [040915 17:12]:
> > (Your choice whether that describes you or an item you omitted. If
> > you want to make a serious attempt to apply DFSG #5 or #6 to patent
> > termination, I'm listening, but please craft your argument so that it
> > does not classify the GPL as non-free because it discriminates against
> > people who want to sell binary-only versions of free software.)
>
> If a software discriminates against people wanting to sell or even
> only those selling free software as binary-only, it is also non-free.
> (As this is quite equivalent to discrimation against people selling
> propietary code, as BSD licensed is also free)
>
> GPL does not do so, it only states things like you have to give (or offer)
> source with the binary of this program under GPL.
That's very nice, but it has approximately as much to do with patent
termination clauses as do unicorns.
> An elementary point of Free Software is to protect the rights of the
> users, not excluding "bad" ones. (Or will GPL3 have a section
> termination the licence if you breach any FSF copyright?)
One of the recurrent suggestions I have seen for GPL3 is some parallel
to the Open Software License's "External Deployment" clause -- perhaps
on the basis that end users of the software are users too, rather than
the person who operates the machine executing the software being the
user. GPL3 may not include such a clause, or may not ever happen, so
I do not think it is productive to argue about what imaginary license
clauses mean.
Michael Poole
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