Re: Choice of venue, was: GUADEC report
On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 06:09:20PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> So why "should have one" rather than "needs one"? Many people are
> fond of emphasizing the "Guidelines" part of DFSG, and I hope that
> everyone would agree that a restriction on use is non-free. Yet there
> are always some who disagree, so it would hopefully avoid arguments to
> have it.
I'm extremely wary of the idea of modifying founding documents in order to
avoid arguments, especially arguments that havn't even occurred yet. It
doesn't work--at best, it merely creates new arguments, such as the SC
GR changing the "does 'software' include documentation?" debate into "does
'program' include documentation?" (due to the unfortunate use of the
word "program" in the DFSG).
Almost any part of the DFSG can be (and has been) brought under debate;
we can't keep patching the DFSG until all argument stops, because it
never will.
> The exception I mentioned would be for web application-type software.
> I am somewhat biased since the free software I write and maintain is
> in that category, but I think it is justifiable for a license to
> require that someone who makes a modified version of free software
> operable by others also make the modified source available to those
> users. The hard balance there is between copyleft-style code sharing
> and the burden imposed on operators of kiosks or embedded devices,
> where users may not care about the source code (or who may request it
> en masse to protest unrelated issues).
I've seen general, vague agreement with this in principle, but I don't
think anyone has come up with a license implementing this without creating
lots of problems.
--
Glenn Maynard
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