Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> wrote:
> >On Wed, Jul 14, 2004 at 07:52:14PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> >> The dissident test only makes any sense at all because it suggests that
> >> certain license provisions will result in bad things happening to the
> >> dissident if he complies with them. I am unconvinced that following the
> >> QPL's requirements would increase the risk any more than following the
> >> GPL's requirements. The GPL allows some evil government to come after
> >> the dissident if he thinks that it's too dangerous to give his source
> >> code to recipients of binaries.
> >
> >Given the above, there is a big difference between communicating source
> >code to those you're already choosing to distribute binaries to given
> >whatever secure means you have, and communicating source code to an
> >untrusted third party.  I can't think of any danger arising from
> >distributing source with binaries that couldn't reasonably be addressed
> >by sanitizing the code in question to hide its authorship.  Copyleft also
> >doesn't concern itself with contributors being branded idiot programmers
> >based on the quality of their code, and I find this to be entirely
> >sensible.
> 
> If we assume the existence of secure communication within the country,
> then assuming the existence of secure communication to outside the
> country isn't an excessive leap.

That is an enormous leap.  Handing something to my trusted friend is
very different from trying to get things out of the country.

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu