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

[Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu>]

Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
>
>> (To be clear, patch clauses are explicitly free, for obvious reasons--though
>> as I've said I'd like that to change.  I think "you must patch, *and* you
>> must permit me to incorporate your patches" goes beyond the DFSG exception.)
>
> Right, but why? We have a set of freedoms that were chosen based on what
> we felt we (and our users) needed. The requirement to provide a liberal
> license to upstream is arguably obnoxious and somewhat unfair, but it
> doesn't prevent either us or our users from being able to do anything
> that we feel we ought to be able to do. The DFSG isn't about wanting
> upstream to be nice to us - it's a set of freedoms that we require, and
> as long as those freedoms are provided we should be happy.

Yes, it does -- it prevents me from incorporating any patch to which I
don't own the copyright.  There is no license I can have from anybody
which permits me to grant a license like this to the "initial
developer" -- granting new licenses is something only the copyright
holder can do.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu