On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 03:46:03PM -0500, Russell Nelson wrote: > Jason McCarty writes: > > Anyway, the only reason xsane is still dfsg-free is that the EULA _could_ > > be removed. If the license prohibited removal, then it wouldn't be > > dfsg-free. > You guys are funny. You're like the temperance activist who, when > confronted with old Uncle Harry the drunkard, says "Oh, that's just > Uncle Harry. You know how he is." > If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when > run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive > ---- > use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement > ------- > including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there > is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and > that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, > and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. > Why is it okay when the GPL prohibits removal of code that announces > the licensing, and yet a license which prohibits removal of code that > implements click-wrap is not okay? Because the GPL, on the rare occasion that this particular clause takes effect, still doesn't put any conditions on the user's use of the software. Because the GPL's clause about not removing functionality is much less limited in scope than any of the others so far discussed: it does not apply if you turn an interactive program into something else; you're allowed to add options to disable the display of the notice; you don't have to display the notice at all if the original author didn't include one to begin with. This clause of the GPL is still something of a wart. Perhaps a future revision of the DFSG would clarify that GPL software is only free if it *doesn't* take advantage of this clause. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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