Re: after a long thread and a clarification with O'Reilly ...
On Wed, Jan 30, 2002 at 01:38:23PM +0200, Richard Braakman wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 02:01:48PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > Do they intend this as a "notes" or a "license"?
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 04:21:49PM +0100, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> > > - commercial products that include this document are themselves
> > > compliant with the DSFG and don't consist of this document only.
> >
> > What's the point of the first statement: "are themselves compliant with
> > the DSFG"? The statement doesn't make it any more true.
>
> The statement you quoted is inside a "provided that" clause. So they're
> making DFSG compliance a legal requirement, which is a bit problematic
> since the DFSG was never intended as a legal document :) I'm sure there
> are loads of ways to make a license legally DFSG-compliant while
> still being extremely non-free. That in itself is not a problem in
> terms of freeness, since it just makes it easier to comply with the license.
> But the vagueness might go in the other direction, too. We've already seen
> how broadly the "No discrimination against fields of endeavor" clause
> can be interpreted. If you make such a commercial product, can you have
> any confidence that you have followed the license in a way that will
> hold up in court?
Err, not sure, but it seems to me that this will not be ok.
My guess is that it will fail DFSG 9:
License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed
along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist
that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be free software.
So i guess this is a clear no.
Or are there other consideration i didn't think about ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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