Re: Web application licenses

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Josh Triplett <josh.trip@verizon.net> writes:

> How about something vaguely like:
>
> """
> If you make the software or a work based on the software available for
> direct use by another party, without actually distributing the software
> to that party, you must either:
>
> a) Distribute the complete corresponding machine-readable source code
> publically under this license, or
> b) Make the source code available to that party, under the all the same
> conditions you would need to meet in GPL section 3 if you were
> distributing a binary to that party.
> """

So if I use software under such a license in a network switch, to whom
am I obliged to distribute source?  How about a web proxy?

I do wonder what "publically" means.  If I'm offering to hand a CD to
anyone who asks me for one in person, is that public enough?  Or must
I run a web server to distribute it, and thus (assuming this license
is broadly used) have to distribute a web server too?

Does the Department of Transportation need to make stoplight software
generally available?

Does google have to make its source code available?  If so, why?  It's
not going to do anybody else any *good*, since we don't have
100 kilomachine clusters sitting around idle to use.  So this doesn't
get us Freedom; we can't change the google interface we use in
practice.

Slashdot *does* publish its code, but this doesn't give me freedom
with respect to Slashdot.  I just don't see how compelling source
distribution from a networked provider actually increases freedom --
since I don't care about changing the code I have, I care about
changing the code *they* have.

I think it's great that some sites publish their code.  But I don't
see any benefit to freedom from compelling them to do so.  On the
other hand, a compulsive *open interface* would be a useful thing.
Say, if Google were using a weirdly licensed web server which
compelled them to provide an RPC function allowing arbitrary queries,
so that others could access their data in surprising new ways.

As it happens, *they* do this anyway.  But nytimes.com doesn't, and
msnbc doesn't, etc.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu