Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
> In general, analysing licences out of context is no use to debian 
> (does not get more software in the archive) or to the licensors (if 
> their software is not trying to get into debian). The only case when 
> it is useful is if this list is asked for comments on a draft, usually 
> with some particular software for debian in mind.

I really have to disagree here.  For almost every license discussion
on -legal, there is little discussion about what the actual software
does.  License analysis is almost always abstract, and can be easily
applied to other programs.  I simply don't buy it that a license might
be free for one kind of program but not free for another.  Otherwise,
you couldn't modify the first program to become the second.

Now, it is true that authors can add additional clauses to change the
status of a license.  But that just means that the author is using a
different license.  There are also corner cases where the author uses
an unnatural interpretation of the words (e.g. Pine) but those cases
are so rare that they should not drive license analysis policy.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu