Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 05:26:52PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> 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.
Requiring me to public-domain every line of code I ever write and leave all
of my computers with no passwords so anyone can see and use any code I write
also has an "advancing freedom" argument. Lots of things have "advancing
freedom" arguments. A lot of them place unpleasant obligations on other
people, which is why they aren't truly Free.
> >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.
What fringe cases does the GPL come up against? Pointers to previous
discussions is fine if I missed them earlier.
> >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.
I have recently come to believe that the GPL's requirement for source
distribution is fundamentally different, and is in fact not truly a
"compelled distribution" in the fashion of the QPL. Please rip my thought
process to shreds if it's bogus.
The core of my argument is that the binary and source forms of a work are in
fact different forms of the same copyrighted work (excluding, for the
purposes of thought-experiment, the linking issue). Since both forms are
the same copyrighted work, there is no real separation of entities to
distribute -- the GPL is just making that nice and clear. Consider, as an
analogous situation, that some books come with CDs of the text of the book
and (sometimes) further examples and other material. The printed text and
the book-on-CD are the same copyrighted work. If you sell the book to
someone else, you're supposed to give them the CD as well. Certainly it's
frowned upon to sell the book to one person and the CD to someone else.
The GPL is just source+binary in the same way as book+CD. Some licences
give you the option of distributing in one form or the other, but the GPL
reserves this right to some degree -- it says that you at least have to give
the recipient the option -- it's like asking the person you sell your book
to if they want the CD, and if they decline, you throw it in the bin.
The argument seems fairly OK to me. Any comments?
- Matt
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