Re: Fwd: figlet license change from Artistic to Clarified Artistic or Artistic 2.0?
(CC to John Cowan since most of this response is directed at him, and there's
no indication that he's on this list.)
On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 02:39:31PM -0300, Carlos Laviola wrote:
> From: John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
>
> with the GNU GPL, but I (and the author of the AFL) believe this to be
> incorrect, and a failure to reflect on the sublicenseability (that is,
> the right of a distributor of original or modified works to replace the
> AFL with his own license, proprietary or open) of the AFL. I have asked
> the AFL's author to make this point clearer in AFL 2.2.
I'd be interested in details. It sounds like you're saying that people
distributing modified versions can do so under any license. That doesn't
make sense to me, since it would mean that the terms of the AFL aren't
binding and can be discarded completely--which I doubt is the case. Could
you explain this in a little more depth?
For example, the choice of venue clause in the AFL doesn't exist in the
GPL. If I receive a work under the AFL from John, integrate some code from
gcc, and send the result to Bob, can Bob sue John without being bound by the
choice of venue? If not, it's GPL-incompatible. How does "sublicenseability"
help here?
"Sublicensing" is an uncommon practice in free software licenses, so we
(debian-legal) don't have a very good understanding of what it is, how
it works, and why it's used. Any input you can provide would be helpful.
--
Glenn Maynard
Reply to: