Re: APSL 2.0

[Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org>]

On Fri, Aug 08, 2003 at 12:19:54AM +1200, Adam Warner wrote:
> > As for "hermits and leeches", why are casting aspersions?
> 
> It was a colourful flourish. Hermit is not a derogatory term (and
> hermits will not be affected if they don't communicate). Leech was used
> to indicate a scenario where users would en masse demand source code
> merely because they used an electronic communication service.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Remember how quickly the WWW got up
and became a very large part of Internet life?  That growth has been
attributed in part to the fact that anyone could learn HTML by looking at
the source for pages produced by other people.

I don't think that such a licence term is particularly egregious.  Look at
the GPL requirement - if you get the binary, you can get the source.  Now,
who gets binaries?  Users.  So, users get the source to the programs they're
using.  Now move to a webapp.  Who uses/views the webapp?  Users.  So, under
the APSL 2.0, users get the source to the programs they're using.

Handwaving it may be, but I think the intent is similar.

Now, on the other side of the coin, the worry may be that it's important for
webapp vendors to be able to lock away their secrets because it's a
competitive market, or they think merely that they shouldn't have to give
the source away because of this reason or that reason.  But they have
choices.  They don't have to use GPL (or APSL 2.0) code in their product,
and/or they don't have to give every man and his dog access to it on the
Internet.

> > There are a lot of programs that can do interesting things without
> > having anything to do with a network.
> 
> Conceded. But in a networked world how useful is a freedom that only
> applies so long as you don't network with another person?

Not very.  But I think you're reading the intent of the GPL the wrong way. 
The FSF chant is "the users get the source".  The GPL was written in a time
when the web didn't exist, and it was impossible to foresee this way of
distributing applications.  I think this clause of the APSL 2.0 merely
brings GPL concepts into the modern era.

> 
> Regards,
> Adam
> 
> 
> -- 
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-request@lists.debian.org
> with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org
>