Re: Web application licenses [was Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report]
On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 12:18:33PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> First of all, that sounds more like a matter of inconvenience, not a
> matter of non-freeness. After all, there are probably situations under
> which it would be a burden to distribute the source for a GPLed binary
> you are distributing. For example, what if you had a 10MB quota on your
> FTP server, the binaries were 5MB, and the source was 15MB?
It's two situations: in one, you can't distribute binaries unless you
can distribute source; in the other, you can't use the program at all
(effectively) unless you can distribute source. It seems, to me, that
the jump from being able to distribute binaries to source is fairly
small, where in some cases the jump from being able to use the program
to serve requests to being able to send the source is large.
It also feels like a use restriction; are there any use restrictions
which are considered free, or do you think this is not one?
> Second, that could be made more convenient by allowing you to point to
> another location if the software is unmodified.
Freedom to use modified sources is just as important as freedom to use
unmodified sources--making the latter more free isn't very interesting
unless it also applies to the former.
> Third, you don't necessarily need to distribute the source to the
> software via the same medium as the service; you could offer to mail a
> CD, and require compensation for your costs of doing so.
I'd be pretty screwed if a couple thousand people made such a request.
--
Glenn Maynard
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