Re: RPSL and DFSG-compliance - choice of venue
On Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 01:34:04PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> If we write the amendment as something like "A licence must not place undue
> cost or inconvenience on a licensee in order to comply with the licence"
> it's much broader and covers choice of venue as one of it's effects. It
> also covers any other instance where the license can make it prohibitively
> expensive to actually take advantage of the freedoms granted. DFSG #1 is
> interpreted in such a way as to be our defence against that, but it's not
> intuitive. Unfortunately it has potential side-effects and doesn't
> necessarily make it clear enough that that's what's being prohibited. For
> instance, "undue cost" could be argued to not apply for choice of venue
> because the cost involved is not undue. On the other hand, compelled
> distribution of source (GPL) could be seen as an undue cost. It's a very
> difficult line to get right. Whatever we put in writing can be attacked by
It can help, though. There are multiple discussions going on here:
1: "does DFSG#1 only prohibit fees, or other stuff, too? What's a
fee? Where's my dictionary?"; and 2: "is choice of venue an onerous
restriction?" I believe #2 is the important question, and that #1 is
rules lawyering, a waste of time. We might be able to reduce #1 with
modifications like these, making it clear that: no, this isn't a bright
line test, and yes, judgement is required.
I don't think these types of amendments are what David and Steve M have
in mind, though; I think they're aiming to reduce #2, as well, and that's
hard to do without either special cases, or new generalizations that may
backfire.
--
Glenn Maynard
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