Re: Korn shell license
On Wed, Feb 07, 2001 at 10:02:35PM -0200, Henrique M Holschuh wrote:
> On one side, I don't mind 1e one bit, as I'd be doing it anyway (AND I
> consider it an obligation of a good debian maintainer to at least check
> upstream once every three or four months, which is what AT&T calls a
> 'reasonable period' in their FAQ).
The clause doesn't just bind the Debian maintainer, but everyone who
uses the Source Code. That makes it postcardware in my opinion.
We already moved one program into non-free because its license
required the user to stroke a cat. It's not onerous (unless you're
allergic), but by the time you install 4000 packages all requiring
different things, it gets to be a problem.
> Is the fact that there are no banner adds, and little if any marketing crap
> at all in the www.research.att.com good enough to disqualify 1e as a "fee"?
We don't know what's going to be on the site tomorrow. Also, the
requirement means that the user has to have an internet connection,
and a client capable of interpreting the site. What if they use
content types that only have non-free viewers?
> I mean, we don't block software with timebombs from main AFAIK. And 1e is
> kind of a weird timebomb that doesn't even go off...
I do hope we consider software with timebombs to be non-free. Being
able to rely on the software you got to be free for ever and ever is
one of the main points of free software.
("All right, it's 2001. Everyone please hand in your copies of
Debian 1.3, it expires this week.")
Richard Braakman
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