Re: The draft Position statement on the GFDL
Raul Miller wrote:
>> > Given that "arbitrary functional modifications" would include illegal
>> > activities
>
> On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 02:59:14PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote:
>> It does. A license that tries to incorporate "you must follow the law"
>> clauses is non-free. That is a longstanding and clear consesnsus on d-l.
>
> That's good as far as it goes.
>
> However, that doesn't go very far when dealing with issues of
> interoperation and creation of derived works.
>
>> > I don't think that "arbitrary functional modifications" is a very
>> > accurate representation of what the DFSG is really trying to allow for.
>>
>> I think you're badly wrong here.
>
> 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?
If it explicitly prohibited that, yes, that would be a non-free license.
Thankfully, it doesn't.
> 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?
Because it's about whether it's free software or not.
Fine point: it's not the "free software community" which is the priority;
it's "free software". Releasing your software under a non-free license
might conceivably help the "free software community", but does not help the
priority of "free software".
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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