Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> wrote:
>On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 10:58:39AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> I would argue against any assertion that there's strong consensus that
>> "distribute to upstream authors" is a "worse" restriction than
>> "distribute source too".
>
>I'll certainly throw my hat in in favour of "to upstream" being worse than
>"source if binaries". Firstly, there's an "advancing freedom" argument --
>ensuring recipients have source code (if they want it) has a great practical
>advantage to freedom. I hope you agree with that (if not, we have more
>fundamental disagreements than this small matter).
But being obliged to pass stuff upstream also has an "advancing freedom"
argument. Hoarding of code does little for freedom.
>Next, there's the issue of cost -- presumably it is of trivial cost (or even
>profitable) to me to distribute to my recipient, because otherwise I
>wouldn't be doing it. It's unlikely that distributing source alongside
>the binaries will significantly increase that cost -- and the GPL (the
>most common example of this form of distribution) specifically allows
>the recouping of distribution costs for source.
In many cases, yes. In other cases (say, on a desert island with enough
CDs to either burn one useful program and source or two useful programs
without source), there may be a significant cost to providing source.
>However, it may not be a
>trivial cost to distribute changes back to the original author -- in cases
>previously hypothesised, it may even be illegal. It is also unlikely to be
>trivial to determine what cost I may incur in sending the changes back
>upstream at the time I decide to exercise my granted permissions.
In the vast majority of cases, the cost of distributing changes to the
original author is not going to be large. We can construct fringe cases
in which it may be, but it's not clear that they're significantly more
common than fringe cases that the GPL comes up against.
>Finally, there is the matter of choice. I can choose who I distribute my
>modified version to, and hence who receives the source. I cannot choose to
>send my modifications upstream -- I am compelled to if I wish to exercise my
>granted permissions. You may argue that I can avoid sending changes
>upstream by not making changes, but that's a bollocks argument -- if I
>cannot exercise the rights guaranteed to be available by the DFSG for a free
>licence, then that licence is not free.
But exercising your DFSG rights to distribute binaries gives you an
obligation to provide the source in the case of the GPL. You can't
choose to give your binaries to someone if you don't want to give them
your source. You can avoid giving them the source by not giving them the
binaries, but then that's preventing you from exercising DFSG rights.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org
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