Hi Dwarf, hi Philip On Fri, Aug 14, 1998 at 09:21:15AM +0100, Philip Hands wrote: > Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net> wrote: > > If the validation suite works on a compliant system then, > > by definition, any system that it doesn't work on will be non-compliant. > > So any system that uses ``ash'' as it's /bin/sh is non-compliant ? > > (I bring your attention to the == vs. = bug in the final equality test) > > While this is a totally trivial example, it does show that the validation suit > can fail to work on a compliant system (unless you are going to tell me that > the standard mandates bash as /bin/sh --- it doesn't does it ?) > > > > bug in the script. Say I find what I believe to be the bug, and I want a > > > few people with known good systems to test the patched version to ensure > > > that is still declares their systems sound --- I cannot do it with the > > > current licence. > > > > > Well, I agree that the letter of the copyright could be seen to forbit > > this, but I wouldn't consider that "distribution" of the changes, unless > > you passed them off as the standard without the authorization of the > > committee. > > Are you really doing the KDE thing here, and saying ``oh, yea, that might be > what the license says, but obviously we don't mean it'' ? > > If you don't object to that sort of ``helpful redistribution'', you might as > well use the GPL. > > GPL section 2 subsection a) > > You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices > stating that you changed the files and the date of any change. > > Just emphasise that point in the copyright statement, with a clause like this: > > Any attempt to pass a modified version of this code off as the unmodified > LCS verification suit will be considered in violation of the licence. > See clause 2) subsection a) of the GPL. > Please ensure that there is not the slightest possibility of there being > any confusion on the part of someone receiving your modified version. > > Also, you seem to think there are people out there that would actually use the > modifiability of the code to undermine the standard. If that were the case, > they can do it as things stand, by just publishing a test suit of the same > name, but of their own creation. > > You would have no copyright control over their code, and since you don't own > ``LCS'' as a trademark or similar you cannot object (via the law) to people > writing code that generates the output: > > This system is LCS compliant. Congratulations! > > Anything you did do about this sort of thing, could also be done to anyone who > was disingenuous in their use of rights supposedly granted under the GPL. > > This no-modification licence for the code is just not giving you the benefits > that you are claiming (if you say ``no I'm not claiming that'', please > reiterate the benefit of using this licence, because I've obviously > misunderstood you). > > N.B. I'm still not suggesting that you should distribute the standard itself > under a ``modifiable'' license. Allowing the public to distribute modified > versions of the standard would be disaster. > > The way I see it, this choice of licence reduces the maintainability of the > validation code. > > It also makes you look bad, because you are representing Debian in this > matter, but at the same time you are ignoring our Social Contract: > > 2. We Will Give Back to the Free Software Community > ... > > Lastly, and I know this is an unlikely scenario, and I certainly wish you no > harm, but if you were killed in a plane crash just before fixing the last bug > in the verification suit, the current license would mean that we would have to > rewrite the whole thing from scratch, rather than just fix it. [sorry, I > probably have a slightly sick way of looking at the world, but I think having > some of my code in wide use after my death would be quite a nice memorial] > > Cheers, Phil. A nice text, it summarize the big points. I agree 100% with Phil. It is not acceptable, that a official announce debian-redhat projekt produce non-free software! Grisu -- Michael Bramer - a Debian Certified Linux Developer http://www.debian.org PGP: finger grisu@master.debian.org -- Linux Sysadmin -- Use Debian Linux "A system without Perl is like a hockey game without a fight." -- Mitch Wright
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