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>]

Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:

>> > What do you find non-free in this ? 
>
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 11:07:36AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Same condition exists with the GPL.  [The GPL can be replaced by later
> versions from upstream.]

Please cite relevant text from the GPL.  I don't see anything like that.
All I see is a common license from authors that software is available
under the GNU GPL, version 2 or any later version, at the discretion
of the *recipient*.

The FSF can't step in and bamf my license to Emacs 21.3 into some
different license.  They might release Emacs 30 only under the GPL 3,
I suppose, and then either that'll be free software or not.  But my
modifications to Emacs 21.3 are released under the GNU GPL version 2
alone.

> Then again, I understand that some people object to the GPL, too.

Yes, but many of them are capable of putting together cogent explanations
of their variety of freedom.  Good for them.  It's not Debian's
variety of freedom, but nobody thinks it is.  Having those people
present enriches the debate on debian-legal.  False statements about
licenses don't help the quality of conversation here at all.

Please, please take the time to read up to a reasonable level of
knowledge before you start throwing around attempts at pithy one-line
brilliant counterarguments.  You're currently doing the debian-legal
equivalent of submitting kernel patches in Perl.  You don't have to be
a whiz-bang VM programmer to be useful there, but you do have to
acknowledge that the kernel's written in C and understand how and
why.  Similarly, you don't have to be Eben Moglen to be useful here,
but you do have to have a basic familiarity with the GPL and other
common licenses, and with common licensing and free-software terms.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu