On Wed, Mar 03, 2004 at 09:43:27AM -0500, Jeremy Hankins wrote: > I think that this captures why I, at least, am a bit uncomfortable with > your analysis. I haven't looked in any detail at the license, so I've > mostly stayed out of this discussion. But I do think that as a matter > of method, the above is the wrong approach. > > If language is unclear we have two options: > > - Look only at the most restrictive interpretation > - or, if that's not free, seek clarification. > > Judging by past experience, we can't always expect license authors to > take what is to us the most reasonable interpretation. If in fact they > do, there should be no problem at all getting clarification. But > pending clarification, we must assume the worst. > > The principle at work here is that we have an obligation to our users, > not to the copyright holders. I realize that copyright holders are > going to be frustrated with this approach because it may be hard for > them to judge where d-l stands on a license at times. For this reason > it's worthwhile to work on improving communication with upstream > licensors. But that must take second place to our obligation to make > sure that our users aren't surprised by un-free clauses in licenses. Hear, hear. Very well said. -- G. Branden Robinson | Religion is excellent stuff for Debian GNU/Linux | keeping common people quiet. branden@debian.org | -- Napoleon Bonaparte http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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