On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 11:39:29PM +0100, Jérémy Bobbio wrote: > 3. One test I've been taught to use to reason about free software is the > Desert Island test [2] which starts by: > Imagine a castaway on a desert island with a solar-powered > computer. > Obviously, software that are only frontends to unreproducible “cloud” > services do not pass the desert island test. This is a mischaracterization of the "Desert Island test" as it was formulated on debian-legal. The Desert Island test is about whether a user can *comply with the license* of the software on a desert island when they have no contact with the outside world. That the software may not be *useful* to them on a desert island is a separate question, and applies to many sorts of software, not just those used for connecting to particular services over the Internet. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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