[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: OSD && DFSG - different purposes - constructive suggestion!



On Sun, Mar 09, 2003 at 10:42:18PM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote:
[...]
> > > Q: What about licenses that grant different rights to different groups? 
> > > Isn't that discrimination, banned by DFSG#5/6?
> > > A: For Debian's purposes, if all the different groups can exercise their
> > > DFSG rights, it's OK if there are other people who can do more.
> > >    For example, if a work were licensed under the 3-clause BSD license
> > > only to elementary school teachers, but the GPL to everyone else, it
> > > would be DFSG-Free.
[...]
> Note that the limits you're placing in your example (group x can have
> this license, group y can have this license) mean that neither the
> 3-clause BSD nor the GPL is actually in effect -- you've modified both
> licenses by limiting who's eligible.  I'm not sure if this makes it
> non-free; if the license is worded such that a teacher receiving the
> source under the BSD license can't redistribute modifications under the
> BSD license to *non*-teachers, then it's certainly non-free.

An excellent point.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |    Imagination was given man to
Debian GNU/Linux                   |    compensate for what he is not, and
branden@debian.org                 |    a sense of humor to console him for
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |    what he is.

Attachment: pgp4K5X2tam94.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: