On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 16:05:53 +0000 John Halton wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 10, 2007 at 05:58:52AM +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
> > So I can't recommend the AGPL to the hesitating project without
> > being sure it's DFSG-free (since I want their work to be included in
> > Debian and Ubuntu ultimately).
>
> I suspect it'll be necessary to wait for the final version of the AGPL
> before this can be decided. It would probably be unwise for any
> developer to adopt a discussion draft in any event.
Definitely!
We sometimes (often?) are not able to reach consensus about a published
license: how could we be reasonably sure that the final text of a yet
*un*published license will meet the DFSG?!?
>
> APGL seems to have a number of problems, and indeed I've just left a
> couple of comments of my own on the FSF's discussion draft at
> http://gplv3.fsf.org/comment/agplv3-draft-2.html).
If you are the 'johnh' user, then you seem to share a part of my
concerns about the GNU AGPL v3 draft2.
My comments are included in the already cited
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/09/msg00032.html
> Whether the nature
> of the problems are enough to make it non-free, though, is difficult
> to say.
I tend to think they are enough.
>
> > There are similar attempts to fix the ASP loophole. Consider for
> > example the Honest Public License, whose original is at:
> >
> > http://www.funambol.com/blog/capo/files/HPL_draft.txt
>
> One problem with the HPL is that it is a modification of the GPL,
> which is prohibited by the GPL itself.
This is not really the case.
As long as you change the license name (which was done by HPL authors),
drop the preamble (which was done, as well), and modify the
instructions-for-use accordingly (which was more or less done by HPL
authors[1]), you have permission from the FSF to create a derivative
license from the GNU GPL.
See http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ModifyGPL
[1] even though they don't seem to have decided whether their license is
called *Honest* Public License or *New* Public License... (or am I
misreading the whole thing?)
Anyway the added clause (2d) seems to share many of the problems of the
GNU AGPL v3 draft2 (and maybe some more...).
There's at least the scope problem (what does "interact with users"
mean? see my comments on the AGPL for a detailed explanation).
As usual: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP.
--
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..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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