Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.
Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 02:34:15AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> The only thing DFSG 4 says is that patch clauses are acceptable. It
>> effectively means "Modification by patches is equivilent to modification
>> by other means". Any other license issue is entirely orthogonal to that.
>
> It's explicitly a compromise; it does not imply that Debian must allow not
> only patch clauses, but heavily restricted patches, or that restrictions
> on patches must be regarded without respect to the fact that it's pushing
> a compromise even further.
It says nothing of the sort. The only thing DFSG 4 says relating to
patches is that requiring that modifications be patches is acceptable.
The only thing DFSG 4 says is that "You must be able to distribute
modified source or source and modification patches". Whether the terms
attached to those patches are free is up to the rest of the guidelines,
not DFSG 4.
> That aside, I do feel that "here's a restrictive, barely-free license;
> to modify you must give me a much less restrictive license on your
> modifications" is, in the general case as well as the patch case, non-free.
> I havn't been able to find the root of the non-freeness yet, though, so I'll
> drop the argument for now.
I'll be interested to hear that.
>> I strongly believe that the only people influencing decisions about
>> whether Debian considers a license to be free or not should be people
>> who accept the core values embodied in the social contract and DFSG.
>> I've no objection to you making your opinions known, but it should be
>> made clear that they're the opinions of someone with a different set of
>> values. They certainly shouldn't be taken into account when it comes to
>> trying to determine whether there's a consensus of any description.
>
> I believe the patch exception of DFSG#4 is in direct conflict with the
> core values embodied in the rest of the DFSG and the social contract.
I believe that your interpretation of the core values is incorrect.
> I'm sorry that you feel that I, Ian Jackson [1], Wichert Akkerman [2],
> and Branden Robinson [3] should have no say on this list, as well as
> everyone who votes for a change to the DFSG which ultimately fails. I
> feel no need to dispute this ad hominem further, since I have no worry
> of any substantial portion of Debian agreeing with it. You're free to
> disregard my arguments if you wish--anyone can do that for any reason--but
> don't assume others will do likewise.
I'm not suggesting that you should have no say on this list, or even
that your arguments should be ignored. I'm saying that that there is no
way to realistically state "This is our consensus about whether a
license conforms to Debian's values" if some of the people claiming that
consensus don't have the same belief about what those values are.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.legal@srcf.ucam.org
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