Re: Free software

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mozcom.com>
> I'm a bit reluctant to comment on this thread.  I'm sure this
> subject has been beat to death in the past, while I was unsubscribed

Yes indeed. The developers discussed it for one entire month, and then
we voted on it. The vote closed a week ago. It was _extremely_ positive:
80 yes, 12 yes-with-some-reservations, 2 no. The few people who are
speaking up about it now happened to be inactive during this discussion
or are new maintainers. It's too bad they didn't get to participate.

> But the Debian Free Software Guidelines which are referenced here
> themselves contain that highly-charged "must not discriminate" section.

"discriminate" is charged if you are thinking of it in terms of racial,
religeous, or gender conflicts. Obviously, it's not meant to be "highly
charged" in the free software guidelines, it's meant to be part of the
technical language of intellectual property law. We've seen licenses that
discriminate against:

	Commercial use. (A large number of programs)
	Non-Educational use. (Lots of programs.)
	Use by people of certain nations (Cryptography software).
	Use with a Microsoft operating system. (Imlib)
	Use by the police of South Africa (SPICE)
	Use by compiler or embedded systems developers (cygwin32).

The restriction in SPICE was prompted by their dislike of apartheid, that's
the closest to a racial one I've seen so far.

I'm inclined to table this argument for now.

	Thanks

	Bruce

dis.crim.i.nate
(dis-'krim-*-.n{a-}t)
Etymology: L i[discriminatus], pp. of i[discriminare], fr. [italic 
   discrimin-], i[discrimen] distinction, fr. i[discernere] to 
   distinguish between
1) a) vt, to mark or perceive the distinguishing or peculiar features of
   b) vt, DISTINGUISH, DIFFERENTIATE
2) vt, to distinguish by discerning or exposing differences
esp]: to distinguish (one like object) from another
1) a) vi, to make a distinction
   b) vi, to use good judgment
2) vi, to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other
   than individual merit
-- 
Bruce Perens K6BP   bruce@pixar.com   510-215-3502
Finger bruce@master.debian.org for PGP public key.
PGP fingerprint = 88 6A 15 D0 65 D4 A3 A6  1F 89 6A 76 95 24 87 B3 


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