@ 23/04/2004 08:34 : wrote Andrew Suffield : (about DFSG#5,6)
I interpreted them in a more strict sense: if you say in your license that any field of endeavour can't *use* your software, you may be voiding your license, or at least that clause (because you can't do it? -- not a contract, remember?); but if you state in you license this software may not (or may only) be *copied* or *redistributed* from/to nuclear power plants (or the US govment, or non-commercial purposes or in baby-killing machine shops), then your license is not DFSG-free. I have mentioned here before the principle "what is written is valid" and "what is not written is also written" (Herr Heidegger's principle of *hermeneutics*)...They're supposed to prohibit this sort of license clause (all real examples, albeit not with precise wording): - This software may not be used in nuclear power plants. - This software may not be used by the US government. - This software may only be used for non-commercial purposes. And there they stop. Rewriting the DFSG to eliminate this confusion is fairly high on my todo list.
[It is approximately valid to say that they're redundant, if you read the entire DFSG in the lax manner that these two clauses require. But we can do much better than that.]
... -- br,M