Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
On Tue, Aug 10, 2004 at 10:36:22PM -0400, Walter Landry wrote:
> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Ok, find attached the new ocaml licence proposal, which will go into
> > the ocaml 3.08.1 release, which is scheduled for inclusion in sarge.
> > As said previously, it fixes the clause of venue problem, and the
> > clause QPL 6c problem.
>
> Great!
>
> > The problems concerning QPL 3 remain,
>
> Not so great.
>
> > but consensus about it has been much more dubious,
>
> I haven't seen anyone seriously dispute my analysis in
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg01705.html
>
> that there is a fee involved (you questioned whether it was an
> acceptable fee, not whether it was a fee at all). Matthew Palmer
Bah, i am just sick to deal with this. As said, my proposal is to go with this
for now, and concentrate on the sarge release, and work on it more later, when
patience for legal haggling has built up again.
> mentioned it again here
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg01739.html
>
> and there was no response. I also mentioned it here
Probably because everyone is bored with the issue though.
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/08/msg00131.html
>
> Unless someone comes up with something now, the argument looks pretty
> clear.
Well, whatever. I still don't understand how the freedom you claim is denied
by this clause is a problem for the free/open/whatever world, at the contrary,
it is probably a benefit.
> > so i propose we let it be right now, and revisit it maybe at a later
> > time, as i don't really have time for another monster debian-legal
> > flamewar, and am more busy getting my packages ready for the sarge
> > release than nit picking here.
>
> Getting DFSG-freeness issues fixed is just as important as technical
> fixes.
Yes, but it is not as fun, at least for me, and i already lost enough time for
now with this whole issue. The main problem is fixed now, and not everyone
agrees that this is indeed a problem, so let's leave this for a future second
round, so you can all go back to declare the MIT/X licence non-free or some
other such non-sense :).
> > Also, as said, it would be more constructive to let this be today, and come
> > back once upstream is deciding to change licence completely, which may well
> > happen in the next year or so, in followup to the CECILL licencing move.
>
> Since it sounds like the ocaml authors are not interested in
> completely fixing their license any time soon, it shouldn't be in
> main. If they change, and if the license is ok, then it can go into
> main.
Ok, you want to go for a second round of complete abuse here ? I have still
not agreed that both the QPL 6c and the choice of venue clause are really
non-free, and posts like Brian's about the MIT/X licence non-freeness clearly
show the lack of seriousness in some if not most debian-legal position.
> > Finally, i think that we have a general problem with the upstream
> > can use contribution in a proprietary way, since other packages seem
> > to be affected by this also.
>
> Please list those packages. I don't know of any others.
Please go ahead and do your hand work. Just because there is QPL marked on the
ocaml package makes it an easy pick. But i recently read of some major package
licencing issues which allowed for proprietary modifications, i think it was
mozilla related, where upstream no only was allowed to make modifications
proprietary, but they will only take back modification if you assign the
copyright to them, which is probably more unacceptable and harmfull, than
the QPL 3b clause, and you seem to have no problem in accepting this kind of
practices, or let's kick mozilla from main, in addition to X and most of the
BSD stuff, should we ?
Firendly,
Sven Luther
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