Re: why is graphviz package non-free?
Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
> Brian Thomas Sniffen <bts@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> Should this be considered free? I can't see it as free. It's very
>> clear that recipients are being charged for the ability to modify the
>> software. They aren't on a plane with the original author. This is a
>> root problem similar to that of the FSF's shenanigans with GFDL and
>> GPL'd text, and the reason I object to their use of the GFDL: when
>> only a copyright holder can do some things, that's non-Free.
>
> How does providing extra freedoms to certain recipients decrease the
> freeness of a piece of software? Software under the GPL is free.
It doesn't. Requiring that others release more freedom in a mutual
work than you will release is non-free.
> Software under the BSD license is free. Software that is sometimes under
> one and sometimes under another ought to still be free.
It is. But software under a "you get GPL-like rights to my parts of
this thing we're building together, and I get BSD-like rights to your
parts" license is not free.
-Brian
--
Brian Sniffen bts@alum.mit.edu
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