Craig Sanders [cas@taz.net.au] wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 09, 2001 at 01:03:53AM -0600, Bob McElrath wrote:
> > By my license, however, the censorware cannot be applied without the
> > knowledge and consent of the users of the proxy. I think this is
> > reasonable.
>
> yes, the terms and the intent of your license are reasonable - even noble.
>
> however, it conflicts with the DFSG.
>
> it conflicts with both point 5 and point 6:
>
> 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
>
> The license must not discriminate against any person or group of
> persons.
>
> 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
>
> The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in
> a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the
> program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic
> research.
>
> point 5 applies because people implementing censorware qualify as
> "Persons or Groups".
>
> point 6 applies because censoring web sites is a field of endeavour.
>
> the fact that you, or i, happen to think they're pretty despicable
> Persons, Groups, or Fields of Endeavour is completely and utterly
> irrelevant.
Again, my license doesn't actually prevent people from implementing
censorware.
To cut it down to the bare bones, the LICENSE says:
1) The LICENSE must propegate with derived works.
2) The user must know they are using the proxy, and choose to do so.
3) The user is responsible for the consequences of using the proxy.
Nobody has complained about anything but #2. It seems so odd to me that
knowledge that you are using software constitutes "discrimination". It
also seems odd that software forced upon a person could be called
"free".
Anyway...non-free it is. The DFSG was pointed out to me quite some time
ago, and I agreed then that my license violated it, and it still does.
I'm going to keep it that way if for no other reason than to possibly
keep me from being sued.
Cheers,
-- Bob
Bob McElrath (rsmcelrath@students.wisc.edu)
Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Physics
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