Re: Summary : ocaml, QPL and the DFSG.
On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 02:36:46AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > It could very easily be argued that by forcing distribution to an upstream
> > author that they will possibly release the code to the public where the
> > downstream recipient may choose to keep such code private.
> And it could work the other way. Hell, in a licence under current
> discussion, there's an explicit licence term to allow upstream to sell my
> changes under a different licence of their choosing. That seems like it's
> quite useful for an upstream who wanted to take my modifications private...
The it seems that we've reached an impasse at this level of detail, since it
could well be argued that forced distribution upstream can impede or enhance
free software and freedom in general. As such, you can't say that forced
upstream distribution is inherently non-free.
> > It's fairly unlikely that the cost of distributing changes to the original
> > author will be that significant. Desert island and other corner case scenarios
> > aside that is.
> A couple of years in prison isn't that costly? Because that's what I'd
> imagine you'd be facing for unauthorised export to an embargoed country.
I consider this a corner case, and honestly not an issue that Debian should be
concerned with, since we can't cover every corner case nor be responsible for
how countries choose to run themselves.
> > But the idea of sending changes downstream also constrains freedoms, just in a
> > different fashion. I think this argument is invalid because while you may have
> > the freedom to associate with only certain people under the GPL, you do not
> > have the freedom to associate with them in exactly the way you want.
> It's a matter of degrees and of resultant benefit. A recipient with
> binaries but no source has a *lot* less freedom than a recipient with
> binaries and source. An upstream author without my modifications has only a
> bit less freedom than an upstream with my mods.
This depends, of course, on the extent of your mods, but on the whole I agree.
However, this distinction does not cause the idea of forcing upstream
distribution to be non-free.
> Furthermore, it is a loss to the community (or people I distribute to, if
> you like) if I do not make the modifications to the software because I would
> be forced to send my modifications upstream.
Much the same as if you won't modify the software because it's GPL instead of
BSD. This doesn't make the requirement non-free.
- David Nusinow
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