Re: diablo license

[tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)]

Here are RMS's comments on the Diablo license previously posted.  It
seems he agrees with me that it isn't DFSG free.

Thomas


Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> Please forward this to the list:
> 
> 
> In the Diablo license, section 5 is the controversial part:
> 
> > 5. When this software or any work derived from this software is used in a 
> >    commercial product or bundled with a commercial product, the vendor must 
> >    also produce the program this software is derived from for either the Linux 
> >    or FreeBSD operating systems.  The Linux or FreeBSD version of the product
> >    must be sold for substantially the same amount of money as the product
> >    for other platforms, and the Linux or FreeBSD releases must be kept up to
> >    date with the releases for other platforms.
> 
> 1. I believe the requirement about bundling is legally unenforcible in
>    the US.  Maybe more than just unenforcible; using copyright to
>    place conditions on separate independent works is considered "abuse
>    of copyright", and can void the copyright entirely.  (I am not a
>    lawyer, though.)
> 
> 2. If we assume "or bundled with a commercial product" has been
>    deleted, to eliminate that problem, the result is not in my view a
>    free software license, because it puts substantive restrictions on
>    the functionality of modified versions people can release.
> 
> 3. There is no such thing as a "Linux operating system."  He is
>    referring to GNU/Linux, and calling it by the wrong name.  That is
>    not right.  As developers of Debian GNU/Linux, you probably already
>    know about this issue, but if Matthew Dillon does not know, you can
>    refer him to http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html as an
>    explanation.
> 
> 4. Singling out GNU/Linux (but which distro? any one arbitrarily
>    chosen?) and FreeBSD, to the exclusion of other free operating
>    system versions, seems rather narrow.
> 
> It may be possible to convince him that allowing distribution under
> the GNU GPL is ok.  That would allow someone to make a GPL-covered
> modified version that only runs on Windows, but someone else would be
> able to take the source code and port it back to GNU/Linux (or any
> other system).  It seems likely that Dillon would consider this a
> sufficient way of coopeating, and would agree to allow distribution
> under the GPL as well.
> 
> If he agrees with this approach in principle, a simple method that
> would do this, and solve problems 1 and 3, is:
> 
> * Delete "or bundled with a commercial product".
> 
> * Correct "Linux" to "GNU/Linux"
> 
> * Then release under a disjunctive dual license whose alternatives are
> this license (corrected) and the GNU GPL.