Re: Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 09:13:35PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 10:09:49PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 01:24:40PM +0200, luther@debian.org wrote:
> > > of stuff back to upstream. Not only are you free to chose the licence, but
> > > furthermore, it clearly states :
> > >
> > > a. You must ensure that all recipients of machine-executable
> > > forms of these items are also able to receive and use the
> > > complete machine-readable source code to the items without
> > > any charge beyond the costs of data transfer.
> > >
> > > So if there is any non-negligible cost involved in answering that upstream
> > > request, you are free to charge it to upstream.
> >
> > I don't see how 6a relates to 6c in any real fashion. 6c is not a subclause
> > of 6a, so there isn't any relationship there. 6a starts by talking about
> > "recipients of machine-executable forms", which presumably the upstream
> > author wouldn't really be, since upstream is interested in the source and
> > not the binary.
>
> Clause 6 covers what you have to do when you are distributing a work which
> links with QPLed libraries. 6a says you have to distribute it with source, and
> can charge for the data transfer, 6b says you have to give them modification
> and redistributioon right, in a way mostly similar to what we consider DFSG
> free. 6c says that if the work linking with the library is not generally
> available, you need to provide it to the author upon request.
>
> Since the act of providing your work to the upstream author is clearly an act
> of distribution, you have to do it conforming to clause 6 of the QPL, and in
> particular clause 6a and 6b.
That doesn't follow from the licence. 6a only applies to binary
distribution, to wit:
6a. You must ensure that all recipients of machine-executable forms of these
items are also able to receive and use the complete machine-readable source
code to the items without any charge beyond the costs of data transfer.
That's a "if (binary) then no_profit_source" clause, not a "source is always
free" clause. There's several issues that arise from considering costs and
charges in concert with clause 6:
1) There's nothing in there about not being able to charge for binaries,
thankfully (otherwise that would be a non-commercial use clause).
2) There's nothing that says that you can't charge upstream a million
dollars for their copy of the source. I imagine that upstream might not be
real happy about that, but the licence doesn't say *anything* about what
charge or lack thereof applies to distribution upstream.
This cuts both ways, of course. We can't exactly argue that distributing
items upstream is a cost to the user if they can make a profit off it, but
at the same time, I severely doubt that you support the interpretation that
the user is able to charge the initial developer an unrealistic price,
especially given the Trolltech annotations, which you appear so enamoured
of, which state that the intent of 6c is that of trying to stop proprietary
software being made which is based on QPL software.
3) If clause 6 was interpreted to mean "source is always free", then the
clause devolves into a non-commercial use clause, because in many cases
there *is* no binary form. I'm thinking Perl, PHP, Python, or anything like
that, where anything written in an interpreted / JITted language is linked
to a QPL'd library, you cannot charge for the program, because then you
would be charging for source, which is not allowed by your interpretation of
the clause.
- Matt
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