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Re: ocaml, QPL and the DFSG: New ocaml licence proposal.



On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 09:03:31 +0200 Sven Luther wrote:

> > It forces me to grant to the initial developer more rights to my
> > code than he/she granted me to his/her own code.
> 
> Easy, you place your patch under the QPL, and then if upstream applies
> the patch, he clearly makes a modification of your work, and gives you
> the same right back with regard of the original software, so it is not
> non-free, but not really what upstream expected in the first place.

I don't read QPL 3b that way.

| 3. You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your
| modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as
| patches. The following restrictions apply to modifications:
[...]
|       b. When modifications to the Software are released under this
|       license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the
|       initial developer of the Software to distribute your
|       modification in future versions of the Software provided such
|       versions remain available under these terms in addition to any
|       other license(s) of the initial developer.

When I release my modification to the Software under the QPL, the
initial developer (of the Original Software) automatically gets more
rights than anybody else: he/she gets a right that goes beyond the ones
granted by the QPL to mere mortals. Actually the initial developer gets
the right to take my modification and relicense it under *any* other
license (as long as the modification is applied to the Original Software
and the result is also available under the QPL).

He/She does not need any other permission to do so: he/she is not
subject to the QPL license applied to my modification, because he/she
automatically gets a more permissive grant from me on the basis of the
QPL license applied to the Original Software.
And I cannot refuse to grant him/her this right (as long as I want to
release my modification under the QPL): if I refuse, I'm violating the
QPL license. In the meanwhile I have no such right with respect to the
Original Software.

Again: IMHO this does not satisfy DFSG 3.


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