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

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 11:57:39AM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> 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).

Because 3b apply only when the patch is released under the QPL, and 4 forces
you to use the QPL if you want to do binary distribution, as debian does. So
the patcher could release its patch under the BSD, and i could then QPL it and
incorporate it or something such.

Friendly,

Sven Luther