Matthew Palmer wrote: > On Thu, Jul 22, 2004 at 04:27:25PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > >>Matthew Garrett wrote: >> >>>Matthew Palmer <mpalmer@debian.org> wrote: >>> >>>>On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 11:05:55AM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: >>>> >>>>>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. >>> >>>I don't think a license that allows people to produce closed products is >>>a good license. I think a license that allows precisely one person to >>>produce a closed product is better than one that allows many people to >>>do so. I still don't think it's good, but I certainly don't think it's >>>non-free. Why is equality so much of an issue? >> >>Very well put. That's exactly my reasoning behind saying the "upstream >>gets an all-permissive license" requirement is acceptable and just >>obnoxious. > > While being able to take your modifications to a piece of software > proprietary might be considered bad (opinions differ), I'd much rather that > everyone was able to do it than one party. That way nobody is in a > preferential position -- why should someone be able to take my work > proprietary, if I don't have the ability to do the same in return? That's only the case if you consider the right to take the work proprietary useful, and helpful to Free Software. I consider it to be neither. In my case, I would have absolutely no interest in taking the software proprietary, so that "right" would be worthless to me, and I would prefer that as few people as possible have the right to take my code proprietary. Ideally none, of course. > You might argue "because they've done a lot more work that you", but that's I most certainly would not. > not what the licence says. If I rewrite 50% of a QPL'd program, the initial > author still has the ability to sell that large body of code, but I can't > sell my modified version. Please don't equate "sell" and "make proprietary". You can sell Free Software, and you can give away proprietary software. > The inherent unfairness of it irritates me. On the one hand, I can see why It irritates me as well, and I already said I found it obnoxious. That doesn't necessarily make it non-free. > some people don't think it's non-free -- "If I can make the modifications > guaranteed by the DFSG, what's the harm?", but one of the real benefits of > Free Software is that no member of the community has an inherent advantage > over anyone else -- a "free market" ideal. I consider the benifit of Free Software to be that everyone has all the essential freedoms over the software. If some people have non-essential freedoms, such as the "right" to take the software proprietary, then that is irrelevant to me. I find it annoying that they can take my code proprietary, but I would consider a license better that allows fewer people to do so. For that reason, I would prefer a "the upstream author can take it proprietary" license over a "everyone can take it proprietary" license, although I would prefer the GPL over either. - Josh Triplett
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