Re: DRAFT: debian-legal summary of the QPL

[Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com>]

Don Armstrong writes:
>On Mon, 19 Jul 2004, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>
>> There's no consistent and coherent argument going on, other than a
>> sort of fuzzy "We think it's not free, and we can sort of point at
>> these two things and handwave and say they cover them".
>
> DFSG 5 No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
> The license must not discriminate against any person or group of
> persons.
>
>As had been mentioned earlier, the argument is that because dissidents
>living in some country (or persons living on a desert island) are
>either persons or a group of persons, and are discriminated against by
>a clause of this license, then that particular clause fails DFSG 5.

This word "discriminate" - I don't think it means what you think it
means. All users of the software are given the same license. The
license itself does not discriminate against them; it does not say "no
people on a desert island may use this" or similar. If other
circumstances created by local law or coincidence are causing
difficulties, then why is that a license problem?

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve@einval.com
"Every time you use Tcl, God kills a kitten." -- Malcolm Ray