Re: cdrecord: weird GPL interpretation
Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> writes:
> On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 12:28:09PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>> The previous pine license was clearly and unambiguously free. UW, the
>> copyright holder, devised an interpretation which was non-free.
>> Debian deferred to the copyright holder's interpretation in that case.
>
> That doesn't really sound like clearly and unambiguously free, to
> me.
It's a license accepted as free elsewhere.
> It sounds as if at least some people in debian were convinced of the
> copyright holder's interpetation.
>
> Also, if we were to follow that precedent here -- if Debian defers to
> Joerg's interpretation -- we would need to move every GPLed package out
> of main.
No. Joerg is only the copyright holder on some code, and lazy
evaluation is important here. What he's saying is best interpreted as
"My package is not and never was under the GPL; it's under this
non-free license over here. I think this has always been the case."
Sure, he's nuts, but why pick a fight with him over this?
> Alternatively, if we decide that the text of the license in question is
> irrelevant and it's only the stated wishes of the copyright holder that
> matters, we should not consider "arbitrary termination" clauses as being
> any different from any other free software license.
Debian requires many permissions that it will never use, because these
permissions must be provided to end-users. Debian might never remove
the cdrtools SUSE-annoying code, or Hans Reiser's advertisements and
credits, but it requires the permission to remove them.
It's perfectly consistent to insist on a right to continue
distributing when the copyright holder wants you to stop while ceasing
distribution when the copyright holder asks.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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