Re: Question about license compatibility
On Friday 22 July 2005 03:28 am, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Sean Kellogg <skellogg@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> > License 1 contains a limitation on use ("educational, research and
> > non-profit purposes, without fee") which is a violation of DFSG #6.
> > License 2 is less obvious, but I personally believe that a provision that
> > forbids charging a fee for distribution is non-free, or at least bad
> > policy. Certainly having a package that prohibits charging for
> > distribution would prevent it from being on a Debian CD sold by one of
> > the vendors. Based on the DFSG I'd have to point to #1 and #6... but
> > both are kind of stretches.
>
> That aspect of license 2 isn't a problem - the DFSG don't require that
> people be able to charge for an item of software, merely the aggregate
> work.
Why is that the case? The license says:
"The licensee agrees not to charge for the University of California code
itself. The licensee may, however, charge for additions, extensions, or
support."
If the license said "You cannot charge for this code, nor can you charge for
it in agregate with other applications outside of this license" I might
suggest the second part is simply unenforcable. But even if it were
enforcable, how does selling code in agregate with other code not fall within
the bar against "charging for the code itself?" The CD has value because of
the code, I am charging for the CD, part of why customers are willing to pay
for the CD is the value of the code... strikes me as I am, agregate or not,
charging for the code.
Additionally, how is this not a discrimination on use prohibited under DFSG
#6? One of the uses of software is to package, modify, and resell. If I
cannot do that because of the license, isn't that a use descrimination?
-Sean
--
Sean Kellogg
3rd Year - University of Washington School of Law
Graduate & Professional Student Senate Treasurer
UW Service & Activities Committee Interim Chair
w: http://probonogeek.blogspot.com
So, let go
...Jump in
...Oh well, what you waiting for?
...it's all right
...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
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