Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>

> I don't like the idea of choice of venue clauses either, but I'm more
> uncomfortable with extending the DFSG to deal with things outside the realm
> of the basic freedoms we associate with software.

There is no extensions going on. It has ALWAYS been the point of the
DFSG that it specified some basic freedoms that have to exist and be
granted to Debian users *without any strings attached*.

A choice-of-venue clause is an attached string. It is immaterial what
the precise nature of the string is. The only relevant is that you do
not get the basic rights automatically -- you have to accept
conditions that have nothing to with the basic rights. Therefore we
must treat the license as if those basic rights are not given.

Things you can only get by giving up something else are not given, for
the purpose of the DFSG. This is not a new thing. It has always been
so. It is *especially true* if the thing you have to give up is not
related to the basic freedoms at all.

-- 
Henning Makholm   "And here we could talk about the Plato's Cave thing for a
                while---the Veg-O-Matic of metaphors---it slices! it dices!"