Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report

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

Matthew Garrett <mjg59@srcf.ucam.org> writes:

> On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 18:49, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
>
>> The patent non-policy should not be used as a precedent.  It's there
>> until the software patent issue goes away in one direction or another
>> -- the current situation is not tenable for the years to come.  It's
>> not something anybody should be proud of or enjoy doing, but it's the
>> only way to have *any* software right now.
>
> Sigh. Yes. But the difference between the two makes no practical
> difference whatsoever to our users at present, so what's the point?

It makes a huge difference.  They can get access to much more software
if we ship stuff with a termination clause.  Of course, they can also
get access to much more software if we ship non-modifiable software,
and that makes no practical difference to most of our users at
present, either.

The point, in short, is that termination-clause licenses aren't free.
In the very specific terms of the DFSG, they discriminate against
whatever endeavor allows termination, or in the case of
arbitrary-termination clauses against whomever the licensor doesn't
like.  Licenses which terminate for non-compliance are different,
since they can't move you from a compliant to a non-compliant state,
but only from a non-compliant state to a non-compliant state.


-- 
Brian Sniffen                                       bts@alum.mit.edu