Re: Barriers to an ASP loophole closure
Jeremy Hankins <nowan@nowan.org> writes:
> > Free software preserves the possessor's legal liberty to change the
> > software, something that only legal limitation was previously blocking
> > him in. But forced publication at all: how does this increase the
> > user's liberty to change the software?
>
> I don't understand this question. Having access to the source is
> necessary if you want to make changes. Examples of dentists' software
> aren't relevant (unless you're a dentist), because that'd be outside
> of the sort of use we want to pick out.
The point is that the alleged "user", even if he has the source to
what's behind the web page, *can't* change it, because it's on a
computer beyond his control, on the other side of that connection.
Giving him the source does *NOT* make it possible for him to change
it.
> > Even if there were *no* legal limitations of any kind on the copying
> > and modification of any software, there would *still* be no way to
> > give that liberty to users, since (when user and possessor are
> > different folks), the user is not the one who decides what software to
> > use (paradoxically). The user can't change the software at all.
>
> In the case of a web page it makes as much sense to say that the admin
> is using apache as it does to say that the viewer is -- more, imho.
Exactly. But the Affero bit says that the *viewer* is the "user", and
that the source has to be given to the *user*.
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