Re: GPL v3 Draft
On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 12:49:31AM -0800, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 02:49:24AM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > What about binaries via BitTorrent, source via HTTP? BT would be more
> > capable than HTTP for many projects' binaries, and HTTP more capable for
> > source, where a lot of people download binaries and few download source.
> > They're clearly not equivalent, but it seems like a perfectly reasonable
> > distribution scheme.
>
> The interpretation of "equivalent" here is up to the courts to settle; which
> I think is how it should be.
If a license requires a court to interpret, to find out what my rights
are, then it's a poor license; I should be able to find out what I'm
allowed to do under a license by reading it, not waiting to be sued.
I don't think this is an obscure corner case, either, but a realistic
example, where I think the license should make its intent clear.
> While "equivalent" doesn't mean "identical",
> you can always resort to *using* identical methods if in doubt.
If I have reason to want to use different methods, saying "don't do that"
isn't a very helpful solution.
> Just to be clear, do you believe there's a freeness issue here, or are you
> merely suggesting ways the license could be improved?
I think this clause is a superset of the GPLv2's version, so for Debian's
purposes, I don't think there are freeness issues. (It's 4am, though, so
I'm not sure.)
--
Glenn Maynard
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