Re: One unclear point in the Vim license

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Bram Moolenaar <Bram@moolenaar.net>

> You are not allowed to distribute a modified version of Vim when you are not
> willing to make the source code available to the maintainer or do not want to
> let him decide what to do with your changes.

This is non-free according to the normal consensus interpretation of
the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

As the minimum, it should be possible for someone to distribute a
modified version - as binaries and source code together - to a few (or
many) friends and then never touch the program again, possibly
deleting it from one's computer completely.

It would be OK to say "if you distribute a modified version
_without source_ to anybody, you must be willing to give me the
source". It would even be OK to apply such a clause to unmodified
versions too.

Reserving the right to do whatever you want with the modified source
is *probably* DFSG-free but not nice. As it stands, you seem to demand
the right, e.g., to include people's patches in proprietary editors.

A quick fix to make the license terms free would be to offer an option
to change the licence to GPL. The unconditional source disclosure
rules in the GPL do a pretty good job of making the kinds of abuse you
probably seek protection against unworkable in practise.

-- 
Henning Makholm          "Jeg har tydeligt gjort opmærksom på, at man ved at
                   følge den vej kun bliver gennemsnitligt ca. 48 år gammel,
               og at man sætter sin sociale situation ganske overstyr og, så
           vidt jeg kan overskue, dør i dybeste ulykkelighed og elendighed."