On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 11:17:31AM +0200, Gerfried Fuchs wrote: > > DFSG#5 and #6 are rarely used. Most of the time, you really want to be > > looking at #1, including for "non-commercial use only" licenses. > > Well, I don't know which part of the MIT/X11 license you are aiming it, > but if you say it discriminates people trying to sell the software it > would violate #1 then, right? > > The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling > or giving away the software ... It doesn't make this restriction; the MIT/X11 license is the generic "Do anything you want with this" license. However, this clearly makes it difficult if not impossible for somebody to sell the software - the recipient should have little difficulty finding somebody to supply it for free. The point here is that this should _not_ qualify as "discrimination" under DFSG#5. For the record, I hate the wording of DFSG#5 and #6. A stable society requires discrimination of some form. Capitalism is founded upon discrimination against the poor; Debian upon discrimination against the stupid. > > Trying to apply #5 outside the scope of things like "This program may > > only be used by white american males" will usually lead to nonsensical > > results - like declaring the MIT/X11 license non-free. > > You might be right, but I see no reason for to believe that #5 has a > specific scope only. The thing is, the OSL says "if you sue us, you are > not allowed to use our software *or* _ANY OTHER_ software licensed under > the OSL". This fails with #9 (no impact on other software) at least, > IMNSHO. > > I can honestly understand the reasoning behind this, to be able to > address software patents in a nifty way, but still it violates the DFSG, > doesn't it? It quite possibly does violate the DFSG; I still haven't read it. It just doesn't violate #5 on this point. [Also, we *can* proclaim things non-free even if they strictly comply with every point in the DFSG, should there be a good reason. It's always possible that somebody will come up with a swindle nobody thought of while writing the DFSG in the first place.] -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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