Re: Termination clauses, was: Choice of venue

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> writes:

> Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> writes:
>> 
>>>Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>>>
>>>>I'd be particularly interested to hear your comments on the asymmetry
>>>>issue, which is most closely tied to a DFSG point: I can't distribute
>>>>modifications under the same license through which I received the
>>>>software.  The author used a license which gets him a license to use
>>>>my modifications in a proprietary way, but I don't get such a license
>>>>for *his* changes.
>>>
>>>Actually, you can distribute your changes under the same license: the
>>>QPL.  People who receive the software from you must grant you the same
>>>more-permissive license to their changes as well.  I do agree that the
>>>QPL is full of asymmetry, but I don't think most of it is a DFSG
>>>problem, apart from the "send changes upstream" clause and the "choice
>>>of venue" clause.
>> 
>> I don't think I can -- I have to distribute my changes as patches, so
>> the "initial author" is still the author of the baseline work, not me.
>
> You are the initial author of your changes.

Then I cannot distribute them solely under the QPL -- I also have to
give the initial author of the main program a license to do
proprietary things with my changes, and I also have to give recipients
of my code a charge-free license to modify and distribute my code.
But the QPL is not a charge-free license, so I can't use that.

I've seen some disagreement with one or the other component of that,
but I haven't seen an argument which dealt with both parts together --
the license given to the upstream author and that given to downstream
recipients.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu