Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
>On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 06:28:32PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> What is the practical outcome of this distinction? In both cases, a user
>> may discover that they no longer have the right to distribute the
>> software. Why do we consider one of these cases problematic and the
>> other acceptable? The user is equally screwed either way.
>
>I tend to distinguish between being screwed by the person who distributed
>the software to you in the first place (including the original author, if
>one includes indirect distribution), and being screwed by some third party.
Yeah, but the actual harm done is the same in both cases. While I can
certainly see that there /is/ a difference, I'm still unclear on why we
think it's enough of a difference to influence freedom.
>In other words, there is a difference between being screwed by people
>within the Free Software community, and people outside it.
>
>It is occasionally useful to be able to distinguish good neighbors from bad
>ones.
If an upstream author has previously used license termination clauses,
then I certainly wouldn't suggest that we should consider his software
free.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org
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