Re: One unclear point in the Vim license
Bram Moolenaar <Bram@moolenaar.net> writes:
> If this is so, then there are these possibilities:
>
> - Nobody has a copy of this modified version. Then it doesn't exist
> and the license doesn't apply.
Wrong, the paragraph says that if you distribute a modified version,
then you must provide the changes to the vim maintainer upon request
forever.
> - Someone still has a copy. Then the person that made the changes
> should be able to retrieve it and send the maintainer a copy.
If I make a change, and then distribute to John Doe, and then destroy
my copy, and the vim maintainer comes to me, I am obliged to give him
a copy of my changes. John Doe may be long since unreachable. It
might be ten years later. So once I ever distribute a modified
version, I must personally keep a copy forever. That makes it not
DFSG-free.
> - The person who did the changes doesn't know who still has a copy.
> That's unlikely to happen, since the maintainer apparently was able to
> locate the mofified copy.
Except that it doesn't work like that. The maintainer might, for
example, send out a massive spam to the entire net and say "if you
have made any changes, send them now".
> - The person who did the changes has died. No idea what happens then,
> hopefully we will never encounter this situation.
Why, because people don't die? People die, go missing, vanish, close
up shop, etc., all the time. Sometimes computers even fail when huge
buildings fall to the ground due to airliner impact.
> I explicitly want to keep the person who makes the changes responsible
> for being able to send me these changes. I don't want end-users to
> become responsible for this (they might not even know about the changes).
As long as it is a requirement for *anyone* it's not DFSG-free software.
Thomas
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