Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> writes: >>That's only the case if you consider the right to take the work >>proprietary useful, and helpful to Free Software. > > Or helpful to users. Users who want to write proprietary software can figure out for themselves which software allows them to do so, and which does not. I don't think we should be in the business of promoting licenses that help people write proprietary software. >>I consider it to be neither. In my case, I would have absolutely no >>interest in taking the software proprietary, so that "right" would >>be worthless to me, and I would prefer that as few people as >>possible have the right to take my code proprietary. Ideally none, >>of course. > > I think there's some fuzziness here about "take code proprietary". > Do we all mean distribution under a non-Free license, or without source? Either would be proprietary. By proprietary, I mean "not Free Software". There are two disjoint sets covering all works: proprietary and Free. >>>some people don't think it's non-free -- "If I can make the modifications >>>guaranteed by the DFSG, what's the harm?", but one of the real benefits of >>>Free Software is that no member of the community has an inherent advantage >>>over anyone else -- a "free market" ideal. >> >>I consider the benifit of Free Software to be that everyone has all the >>essential freedoms over the software. If some people have non-essential >>freedoms, such as the "right" to take the software proprietary, then >>that is irrelevant to me. > > So if I compel you to allow *your* software to be taken proprietary, > that's free? My own software, unrelated to yours? No, and you would have no legal ability to do so. My software which is a derivative of yours? That would be acceptable, just obnoxious. >>I find it annoying that they can take my code proprietary, but I >>would consider a license better that allows fewer people to do so. >>For that reason, I would prefer a "the upstream author can take it >>proprietary" license over a "everyone can take it proprietary" >>license, although I would prefer the GPL over either. > > You appear to be implying a contrast between the QPL-style license on > the original work and a BSD-style license on that work. I don't think > that's accurate. The QPL is much more like the BSDPL, in that it > ensures you cannot ensure your work stays free. Hm. Maybe That's more what I was thinking of, yes. I think that the QPL is at least better than the BSDPL, because the BSDPL allows everyone to take the code proprietary, while the QPL only allows the original author to do so. Both are obnoxious, but the BSDPL is even more obnoxious. :) > this would be easier graphically. Your concern is that you'd like > *your* work to stay Free. That seems like the sort of thing which we > should be protecting, though it isn't in the DFSG (except maybe No, it isn't something we need to protect. Copyleft is a wonderful thing, but "the right to copyleft your modifications" is not an essential freedom. It is something we should strongly encourage, though. > distantly #4). So this has a "Yes" if, given some license on the > original work, you can release your work under the license of your > choice. It assumes your work is a derivation from the original: > > Original work ------> > BSD GPL QPL BSDPL > Your > Work BSD Yes Yes Yes Yes > | > | GPL Yes Yes No No > | > | QPL Yes No No[1] No > \/ > BSDPL Yes No No Yes > > 1: Because the "initial author" hasn't changes and your work is only > distributed as patches, you can't get the same sort of QPL the > original author used, only an inferior-QPL in which you don't get the > free license and to demand linked works. That's an interesting point. By that argument, the QPL blatantly fails DFSG3, because you can't distribute your modifications under the same license as the original. I'm more inclined to believe, though, that if you really wanted to, you could license your modifications (meaning the patch you distribute) under the QPL, and people downstream from you would have to distribute patches to your patch, provide changes on request, etc. > And we can substitute any permissive license for "BSD" and any > copyleft for GPL up there. The QPL shares a characteristic with the > BSDPL: that it forbids you to copyleft *your* work. This seems very > different from an author's decision not to copyleft his work. No, I don't think so. The QPL is a copyleft, which happens to also include a more permissive license to upstream. It's also non-free for other reasons, but I don't think this is one of them. > Even the GPL allows me to distribute *my* work separately from the > original, and under the BSD license. I can even distribute them together, > with mine under the BSD license and the combination and the original > under the GPL. The QPL is doing something relatively new and > different, in that it compels me to license my work in a particular > way, not just the original or a derivation. Your work that you are referring to _is_ a derivation, is it not? - Josh Triplett
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