On Mon, Apr 02, 2001 at 10:28:55PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> John Galt <galt@inconnu.isu.edu> writes:
>
> > I missed the "with or without modification" in the header, so thought this
> > clause was the only thing granting permission for derived works. Had that
> > been the case, DFSG 3 would be the controlling consideration and fail.
> > But the permission for derivate works doesn't derive only from this
> > clause, so I was wrong. However, I AM going to point out that Bushnell's
> > idea of "added constraint" for the Diablo license could concievably
> > apply to this clause, and since there's no real division between
> > acceptable added constraint and unacceptable added constraint, could be
> > read to void DFSG 4
>
> Um, this actually isn't usually taken to be a problem. The added
> constraint in the Diable license requires a person to support an OS
> they might not want to, to do a lot of extra work. The added
> constraint here is that you can't choose a name which might conflict.
>
> Naming rules have generally not been thought to violate free
> softwareness; TeX is a classic example.
Actually, LaTeX is an interesting borderline case, according to RMS.
<quote src="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html";>
This license contains complex and annoying restrictions on how to
publish a modified version, including one requirement that falls just
barely on the good side of the line of what is acceptable: that any
modified file must have a new name.
The reason this requirement is acceptable for LaTeX is that LaTeX has
a facility to allow you to map file names, to specify ``use file bar
when file foo is requested''. With this facility, the requirement is
merely annoying; without the facility, the same requirement would be a
serious obstacle, and we would have to conclude it makes the program
non-free.
</quote>
So names of programs are almost always acceptable (I can't think of
any reason why they wouldn't be). But names of files are a more
borderline case.
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