Re: Termination clauses, was: Choice of venue
On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 11:05:55AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> wrote:
>
> >I consider that to be a fee consistent with the expansion of Free Software.
> >In order to distribute modified binaries, I have to licence my source to the
> >recipient as well. That has clear freedom-enhancing properties (Now With
> >Freesol, for added Freeness!) The QPL says I must give a carte-blanche
> >licence to the initial developer of the work I modify. I don't see how that
> >is enhancing Free Software.
>
> The reason I feel this makes approximately no real difference is the
> following:
>
> 1) We (that is, Debian) generally assume that copyleft licenses
> strengthen free software more than BSD style licenses.
>
> 2) In the case of a BSD-style license with a QPL-style forced
> distribution upstream clause, there would be no need for a QPL-style
> permissions grant. Upstream could subsume it into their closed product
> anyway.
But I could do the same to their work under a BSD licence. I can't do that
with a QPL-licenced work. It's all about equality. It's not necessarily a
*good* outcome, but it's a *better* outcome.
- Matt
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