Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: Worse, the QPL is not DFSG-free
On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 03:40:54AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > reasonable. We've asked many software authors to do similar things in the
> > past, with very frequent success, and less laughter and anger than you
> > seem to think.
>
> Yes, but it is by no means reason enough to declare the QPL non-free.
I didn't claim that it was, so this statement isn't relevant.
> > Why do you think such a suggestion would be ridiculed in this case? I
>
> Because, in my case at least, the upstream authors chose the QPL after
> long discutions, because they are interested in their properties. The
> ocaml upstream authors are a research team in the french inria, which is
> a state institute, so the academic world and not some evil corporation
> or something. They want to be able to provide ocaml under other licence
> to users who request it in order to get more founding to be able to hire
> more developers, since after all they are but a bunch of people, and can
> not do everything. Also they are mostly interested in a licence which
> doesn't cause them problems, and legal issues are more a trouble to
> them, as it is too me, than some kind of recreation, as it is for most
> of you here. In this light and knowing the history of the licence
> change of ocaml, from the original non-free licence (source only patch
> only distribution of modifications possible), i can assure you that they
> will find it ridicoulous at best, and be irritated or angry at worst to
> a "Use the GPL" kind of solution.
I'm sorry you assume that everyone's immediate response to these issues
will be ridicule and anger. It simply hasn't been my experience. (However,
my experience with you is that your immediate response to these issues is
ridicule and anger, which gives me some understanding of why you would
assume others will behave similarly.)
"Use the GPL" is a reasonable suggestion to most users of the QPL, since
many people who use the QPL were following TrollTech's lead, and most of
those people have since followed it further and dual-licensed under the
GPL. You're saying that this is an exception to that: people who are
using the QPL on its own merits, and not simply because TrollTech did
so. That's perfectly fine, and means that they should be approached
differently. It doesn't make the GPL suggestion any less valid in the
general case, however.
> Also, one of the clauses you have problems with, the "court of venue",
> if waived, might limit their possibilities to defend against people not
> respecting the licence, and since one of their problematic is for big
> corporation including their changes in java or other such bytecode
> running languages (think C# and a corporation known for stealing code),
> this may be quite reasonable.
Then please calm down, stop expressing your fear of ridicule, and argue
this position.
> You have to be more serious before you declare a licence non-free on
> wishfull thinking like you are doing.
I don't see "wishful thinking" (nor do I know how "wishful thinking" can
possibly apply to freedom of licenses); I see strong arguments that this
license is not free. If you disagree with those arguments, please don't
simply assert your disagreement; explain it.
> And as said, i am badly disposed to this anyway, since i discovered this
> thread through a third party, and debian-legal didn't even bother to
> inform the packagers of QPLed code of this discussion.
I think many here generally prefer not to bother maintainers with these
issues while a summary is still incomplete, as the QPL summary currently is.
--
Glenn Maynard
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