Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Brian Thomas Sniffen writes:

> Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org> writes:
> 
> > Brian Thomas Sniffen writes:
> >
> >> Which, incidentally, is an issue.  If some user sends you a patch for
> >> O'Caml, you can't apply it, because then you'll be distributing
> >> software under the QPL, and trigger QPL 3b, which means you have to
> >> grant the initial author permission to relicense... but you aren't the
> >> copyright holder for the patch, and so can't grant that permission.
> >> 
> >> This ends up being not merely theoretically non-free, but a serious
> >> practical problem for Debian.
> >
> > This does not follow.  The patch's original author "releases" the
> > change by sending it to Sven (or whoever maintains the package in
> > question), triggering 3b.
> 
> Nope -- the patcher doesn't release his software under the QPL.  He
> doesn't transmit binaries to anyone at all.  But Sven does.  So the
> patcher doesn't trigger 3b, but Sven does.

Can you elaborate on why the patcher doesn't trigger 3b?

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:

a. Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the
   Software.

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.

I see no mention at all of binary distribution.  It only mentions
distribution of the patch(es).

Michael