Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> Edmund Grimley-Evans <edmundo@rano.org> wrote:
>
>>I was thinking of a case where the software is being used in a
>>secretive industry. For example, suppose I work for a semiconductor
>>company with 500-100 employees. A lot of what we do is temporarily
>>confidential, in that we don't want the rest of the world finding out
>>what we are working on until there is an official announcement. We use
>>free software. We even use ML in some projects, though I personally
>>use Haskell. Sometimes we might want to distribute software that uses
>>a free library to selected partners, with whom carefully drafted
>>non-disclosure agreements have been signed. I can't imagine the legal
>>department accepting anything like 6c.
>
> Why should free software support companies in not releasing their
> knowledge to the world? Why do we consider the freedom to hoard
> information an important one?
Because privacy is an inherent right of Debian's users. Further,
communication with others, and sharing useful information and tools
with them, should not have any impact on my privacy from you.
Imagine a license which said that any changes, when distributed,
should be sent to the US NSA for evaluation of possible terrorist
intent. Is such a license free? We certainly don't want to support
terrorists. But is it OK to have a license which hurts them and
scares[1] everybody else? No, that's non-free.
Similarly, a license which hurts actual hoarders while scaring[1] users
is non-free.
-Brian
[1] By "scare" I mean that imposes a cost on them which can be
reasonably claimed to be negligible, but which has the potential to
grow unbearably large.
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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