Re: Bug#227159: ocaml: Worse, the QPL is not DFSG-free
On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 01:15:11PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
>
> > On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 09:19:40AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> >> On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 12:50:15AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> >> > On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 06:01:50PM -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> >> > > On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 11:27:05PM +0200, luther@debian.org wrote:
>
> Geez.
>
> >> 1) be able to take other people's modifications proprietary. That's fine
> >> for them, it's just non-free for us.
> >
> > Oh, ok. do we have a consensus on that ? could you point out why in clear
> > points of the DFSG, and not some far fetched and controversed island paradise
> > metahpors. Notice that the FSF doesn't seem toi think so, and it would make
> > the BSD non-free, would it not ?
>
> I think there's a clear consensus that that's non-free, as it's a
> substantial cost imposed on those distributing modifications. It is a
Ok, it is a substancial cost ? Can you elaborate over this a bit ? What does
it really cost to you to make a copy of the software and send it upstream ? At
worse it is a blank CD and a long distance stamp, at best an email with a
somewhat big attachement. I think you would have a real hard time claiming
this is a substancial cost. And furthermore, 6a claims "without any
charge beyond the costs of data transfer." So even that cost you will recover.
I fear that this kind of reasoning is the same as the music industry is using
to claim that peer to peer has caused them a lose of a third of their revenue,
without even bothering to think about the fact that most of those people with
thousand of mp3 on their harddisk would never have the ressource to legally
buy them.
Also, on the moral ground, using the free work of upstream, and denying them a
free copy of your work, is not such a nice behavior, isn't it ?
> fee. Normally, I distribute my software under copyleft. If somebody
> wants to do something proprietary with it, they must pay me a lot of
> money. INRIA wants to pay my instead with a license to distribute
> modifications to their software. Clearly, the license I'm giving them
> under QPL 3(b) is a fee.
Well, we are discussing the QPL 6c) here, not some other part, so please start
a new thread if you wish to mention another point. clause 6 of the QPL mention
that you should distribute the software under a free licence, possibly the GPL
or the QPL, i see nothing in 6 from stopping you from doing that, do you ?
> >> be done by either writing it all themselves (and hence having nobody else's
> >> licence to worry about), or getting copyright assignments or
> >> totally-permissive grants from everyone whose contributions they incorporate
> >> into OCaml.
> >
> > Well, sure. or maintaining a dual tree, which is a pain. Remember, the ocaml
> > team is at best 6 or so people, without legal advisories (i was told some year
> > back that the INRIA legal council is a joke with regard to that kind of
> > stuff).
>
> They need not maintain a dual tree -- just not integrate into their
> tree work which they don't have the license to use as they wish. That
> means they probably don't get my modifications, because I will only
> give my modifications to INRIA under a copyleft.
Well, they don't want to, as it is a pain for them, and additional work.
> > Well, anyway, ... Ok, i will follow advice, and start a new thread. abotu this
> > whole mess.
> >
> >> 1) is non-free, no matter what licence they use. 2) doesn't require the QPL
> >> (which I feel is non-free for a variety of reasons).
> >
> > Ah, and the FSF strongly encouraging me to give them copyright of any
> > contribution to an FSF project is not ?
>
> That's right. The FSF won't distribute your work unless you give them
> copyright. That's fine. They give you a free license to distribute
Yeah, but they didn't give me that symbolic dollar, so i wonder if the
copyright transfer agreement is voided by that ?
> your work -- modifications to their work -- as you please. That they
> also happen to want donations of money, time, and programs is not non-free.
You are naturally right here.
> > But was fine three years ago when they chose it, and this had some influence
> > about their chosing of it. What thrust will they have in our decisions if we
> > don't stand by it, especially as i am sure most people participating in this
> > have not read previous threads about this issue ?
>
> And we thought their software had no RC bugs three years ago. What
> trust should we have in them to write releasable, bug-free code?
> There are bugs in licenses, just like bugs in code. Sometimes they
> take a while to find.
Well, and this is part of my initial exasperation about all this too, we are
software people, we like fixing bugs and writing code, or at least understand
that this is expected of us, but spending hours and days in legal flamewar is
something really exasperating, and should happen as less as possible. I still
recent you all for forcibly dragging me into this nonsense, and in particular
for some of the bogus comments made here to have lost the faith in
debian-legal to really consider the matter in all ways, as befits a proper
legal advice, and you are doing legal advice to the RM/ftp-masters, so you
should live up to that standard if you want to have weight with upstream,
which i clearly don't see happening.
> > How would you have reacted if someone came with a bug report out of nothing
> > like Brian did, without pointing to this discussion,
>
> You already have mail from me -- now weeks old -- explaining that I
> wasn't aware of this discussion; I read the license file for ocaml
> before modifying it, and was horrified to see a clearly non-free
> license there. So I filed a bug.
Well, given the fallacity of some arguments, and little research of this
issue you have done, i question your 'clearly'.
> As a Debian user, I read the DFSG and expected I'd be able to exercise
> those rights with respect to Debian-shipped software. That I can't do
> so with respect to ocaml is a serious bug. If I'd treated that as
> free software and made the modifications I want, I'd have been put in
> a position of violating the QPL or violating other contracts.
Well, what is it you want to do ? You are just angry that the licence is not
BSD and that you can do anything you want with it, that's it. Seriously, no
sympathy from me, as you clearly intented to make proprietary modifications.
> So, as it happens, I'm working with PLT Scheme, an LGPL'd compiler,
> instead. Niiice code, too.
So, fine with me.
> > And Brian was not really tactfull either.
>
> > Well, if i have been offensive and rude to an email which was constructive i
> > apologize for it. for the rest, well i have been under Branden's english and
> > discuss things in email school, so what do you expect. And any rude language i
> > use here, i did learn on debian mailing lists.
>
> >> You are aware that Brian !== Brian? Brian Thomas Sniffen, your primary
> >> combatant in this thread, is not Brian M. Carlson, the author of the snippet
> >> you quoted above?
> >
> > Oh .... , well, i am really sorry about this. and i apologize to Brian about this
> > confusion. shame on me for not noticing ... but then it is hard to notice such
> > details after many hundred of emails.
>
> Of course. It's easy to get confused when facing so much traffic.
Indeed. And i don't thank you for having dragged me into it.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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