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 Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:48:13AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
> 
> >> > Why not ? It would say : upstream can redistribute under the QPL and any other
> >> > licence that is considered DFSG-Free, including the BSD licence.
> >> >
> >> > What do you find non-free in this ? 
> >> 
> >> It compels me to grant upstream a right which upstream will not grant
> >> me.  If that were symmetric, I would not object to this under DFSG 3.
> >
> > Well, take the example of the BSD for example ? It is in no way symmetric.
> 
> Indeed, the BSD is no not symmetric.  It is more permissive than a copyleft.
> *Compelling* the grant of a BSD license to others is less permissive
> than a symmetric license: I have to give up more than I get.
> 
> >> Depending on phrasing, I might still find it objectionable, but I'd
> >> have to think long and hard about the differences between compelled
> >> grant of license to recipients, compelled grant of license to a third
> >> party, and compelled transmission of data.  The first is free, the
> >> third is not, and the second... well, I'm really not sure.
> >
> > Notice that nowhere in the QPL does it say that the original author can
> > compell the patch from you, he can only get it freely from either you if you
> > publicly distribute it, or from one of the chain of people you distribute it
> > too.
> 
> You mean other than QPL 6, right?

Well, QPL6c was removed, right ? And QPL clause 6 and QPL clause 3 and 4 apply
to different cases of software, as we previously discussed.

> Yes, the OCaml license I've last seen has no compelled transmission of
> data, since it overrides QPL 6.  I just provided those three examples
> -- copyleft, compelled asymmetric licensing, and compelled
> transmission -- as examples of a range with one end certainly free and
> one end certainly non-free.

Ok.

> >> >> It however would really improve the ocaml freeness, if ocaml itself were
> >> >> dual-licensed under a 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or Expat or...)
> >> >> besides the QPL. In that case Debian could choose to distribute
> >> >> under the 2-clause BSD license (or X11 or...) and everyone could be
> >> >> happy...
> >> >
> >> > Notice that the situation is not exactly the same. I didn't say the ocaml
> >> > would be dual licenced, but that upstream has the right to distribute your
> >> > changes under some random free licence, including the 2-clause BSD one, to the
> >> > people they chose to. Not necessarily the world at large though.
> >> 
> >> But of course those people could distribute it further, under their
> >> permissive license, right?  Because if they can't, then it's not free.
> >> So this would at least allow somebody to buy and fork Ocaml into a
> >> free-Ocaml and a QPL'd Ocaml.
> >
> > Indded. Now, this is no different than the pure BSD stuff, so if the BSD is
> > free, what is the difference with this one ? 
> 
> This is quite different from pure BSD stuff.  If X gives Y code under
> the BSD license, Y can modify it and do as he pleases, including
> giving it and a copy of the license to Z.  If A gives B code under
> this QPL' you mention, B must give A a license to distribute B's code
> under the QPL, and under some other free license.

Yep, he has the licence, but beforehe can distribute it, he has to get hold of
it. In the pure BSD case, or dual QPL/BSD case , if he gets hold of a BSDish
version, he can do exactly the same thing as with the current QPL.

> But if A then gives C a license to A's code plus B's code under the
> BSD license, C has freedom with respect to the code and could freely
> contribute it to Debian.
> 
> If we got the Caml code that way, that would be great.

Indeed, but this i snot going to happen. I also would 100x prefer a GPLed
ocaml over a BSSDish one though.
o

Friendly,

Sven Luther