Re: Debian Legal summary of the X-Oz License
On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 09:52:36PM -0500, selussos wrote:
> I can only state that if the 4th clause is indeed your concern
> there is a lot more software than ours that you should be worried
> about, and so I must ask, why aren't you? And why is debian
Who says we aren't? The job of debian-legal is to analyse, to the best of
our limited abilities, the interaction between the Debian Free Software
Guidelines and the licences which come to our attention. I'm worried about
*any* software whose licence possibly does not conform to the DFSG, and I'm
sure debian-legal will be dealing with all such software in due course.
For now, however, we're dealing with your particular implementation of this
clause, which several people have raised concerns about. So far, out of all
the messages you've written that I've read, you've not managed to
definitively answer any of the questions put to you. These questions are
attempts, by people in debian-legal, to clarify your position on several
issues of concern. Without such clarification, there is no way we can know
that you do not intend to take a very strict reading of your terms (a la
UWash and Pine) and proceed to sue many people.
> distributing that, and by so doing so obviously acknowledging their
> validity but now ours? I would hate to think that something as
> provincial as prejudice against one our officers is the cause.
I know none of your officers. All I know is that you've written a great
deal, and totally avoided the issue. That, to me, casts a shadow over any
attempts at good faith dealing. You've skirted around the issues, not
responded to some questions, and tried to invoke "but he's doing it, so it
must be OK" as an argument in favour of your licence.
To repeat: the only thing I have to go on to make an impression of you and
your company (and, by extension, your company's interpretation of your
licence) is by your own messages. So far, my impression is not positive.
> At this point, and because of the great amount of time and effort
> this is taking, I must ask all of you to address this concern of mine.
Every single person who reads debian-legal? How will you ever know that
everyone has responded?
- Matt
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