Re: Open Software License v2.1

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

Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> writes:

> On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 02:59:20PM +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
>> Lawsuits are not intrinsically bad for free software.
>
> Software patent lawsuits attempting to prevent the use and distribution
> of free software certainly is intrinsically bad for free software.

But the problem is that that software isn't free to begin with -- it
could be, if the patent owner issued a free license, but it isn't
without the court case either.  Somebody else owns the monopoly on
that invention.

>> It is unarguably superior that source should always be available for a
>> free software project. You cannot say the same for prohibiting
>> lawsuits.
>
> It is not unarguably the case that source requirements are always
> beneficial to free software.  I could easily give an example where
> they were detrimental, and the development of a free software project
> was furthered by dropping them.  (I'm not interested in debating whether
> this was actually so or not; it was, and I'll leave it at that for the
> sake of avoiding pointless tangents.)

You're claiming an existence proof but failing to show the example.  I
don't believe you -- nothing personal, but how can that be allowed as
a successful argument?  I suspect you're looking at a case where you
*bought* effort towards a software project by permitting
source-disclosure requirements to be cancelled.

-Brian

-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu