Re: The draft Position statement on the GFDL
> > So, in essence, you think that the DFSG says we must disallow the
> > distribution of gcc if its license prevents you distributing copies which
> > have been functionally modified to better integrate with microsoft's
> > palladium?
On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 05:22:11PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
> Yes.
That's in direct, literal conflict with the DFSG (clause 10).
The GPL specifically disallows creation of copies with changes -- no
matter how functional -- which include restrictions on the rights of
other users of derivatives.
> > And, if that is what you think, perhaps you can explain how this point of
> > view has our users and the free software community as its top priorities?
>
> With the DFSG we promise to our users that they can take any software
> in main and modify it for any purpose - and distribute such modified
> version under the same license as the software they started out
> with. "Any purpose" here includes modifications that lets it work with
> "microsoft's palladium", whatever this is.
We do not promise this. Feel free to quote the promise to me if you
disagree.
[Note that I'll accept this promise as a simplification of what the DFSG
really says, and that it's helpful in understanding the DFSG. However,
it's still a simplification.]
As an aside, Microsoft's Palladium is currently a mix of software and
hardware vaporware, where some claims about its feature set appear to
mean that free software would be impossible to use in that environment.
[I have no idea how accurate those claims will turn out to be. I'm just
using it as an example of a proprietary system.]
--
Raul
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