Re: Need to Identify Contributions and the Dissident Test
Don Armstrong wrote:
>On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Henning Makholm wrote:
>> Scripsit Don Armstrong <don@debian.org>
>> > Permission to distribute binaries produced by compiling modified
>> > sources is granted, provided you
>> > 1. distribute the corresponding source modifications from the
>> > released version in the form of a patch file along with the binaries,
>> > 2. add special version identification to distinguish your version
>> > in addition to the base release version number,
>> > 3. provide your name and address as the primary contact for the
>> > support of your modified version, and
>> > 4. retain our contact information in regard to use of the base
>> > software.
>>
>>
>> (3) seems to fail the Dissident test.
>
>This particular extension of the dissident test has always bothered
>me, which is one reason why I've never applied it in my own arguments
>of why a license is Free or not free.
>
>1) Some sort of identification of the author of the work is required
>in order to allow people to exercise their DFSG guaranteed freedoms
>upon a work.
Yes.
I do not think we should commit to protect *anonymous* authorship per se,
because it does raise legal problems for getting a valid license.
I instead think we should commit to protecting *pseudonymous* authorship,
with real identity kept secret. A dissident (or several dissidents) could
call him/her/themself "RevolutionaryNumberNine", keep his/her real
identity secret, and carry out entirely proper copyright and license
management. I believe pseudonymous copyright is supported explicitly by US
law, at least. (The psedonymous person could even have a contact email
address routed through one of those Scandanavian anonymizers, if necessary.)
The problem of the pseudonymous person contributing code which is not theirs
to contribute applies, in practice, equally well to named and fully identified
persons (unfortnately), so is not an argument against this. :-(
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