Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL
Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
>On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 11:05:17PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> So why is "You must give the source to the recipient of the binaries"
>> not equally objectionable from this point of view?
>
>It's a restriction whose benefits to free software are believed to outweigh
>the costs. Of course, this is a judgement call. The alternative to being
>able to make that judgement call is requiring that either all or no
>restrictions are allowed (beyond a literal "fee"), and that's not a useful
>alternative; one allows such things as arbitrary termination and "do two laps
>around the block before distributing", and the other prohibits far too much,
>including things which are widely agreed to be free.
Indeed. My belief is that a requirement to provide the source to others
(even those who you haven't distributed the code to) is a net win to
free software. Why should we be concerned about people who want to be
able to hoard their modifications when they could be generally useful?
>> debian-legal is the list on which some people offer their
>> interpretations. It has no official standing or status.
>
>You say that a lot, even though no d-legal regular is claiming otherwise.
>The simple fact is that the DFSG must be interpreted to be useful, and that
>interpretation must happen somewhere; currently, that place is here.
Debian-legal is the place where one interpretation is given. Those who
actually end up making the decisions have their own interpretation which
may or may not be the same. Saying "It must be interpreted to have any
meaning at all, and debian-legal is the list on which that
interpretation is done." implies that debian-legal's interpretation is
the one that gives the DFSG meaning.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org
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