Re: Termination clauses, was: Choice of venue

[David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 01:23:11PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> I think the initial author's intentions are to *mostly* remain free.
> They probably want something a lot like Best Practical -- they just
> want to be able to sell a proprietary product, and have a free
> version, and put things from the proprietary product into the free
> product or not as they please, and also go in the other direction as they
> please.

I have no problem with this and I don't see why it should be considered
non-free, especially in light of DFSG 1 or 6. The conditions of the license
state that any changes from downstream authors must go in to both versions they
release, or not at all, so they don't get to pick and choose what downstream
code becomes proprietary. The only code that they distribute that can become
proprietary is what they themselves write, which is entirely compatible with
the DFSG as I read it.

> It's that last bit which is non-free.  If they did something like the
> FSF, and asked for copyright assignment, that would be free.
> 
> If they did something like best practical, and warned that they would
> consider anything submitted to them by its author to include an
> implied BSD-ish license, that would be free.

Any code submitted upstream to the author will have the QPL attached to it, and
thus will not become hidden or proprietary should upstream choose to distribute
it.

> But when they make it a condition of the license, a fee I must pay in
> order to distribute modifications, then it is no longer free software.

This brings us back full circle to the definition of a fee. I still contend that
by forcing downstream distribution of source, the GPL imparts a fee of its own,
and yet we accept that as free.

 - David Nusinow