Re: GPL v3 Draft
On 1/17/06, Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:
> > > > > d) They may require that the work contain functioning facilities that
> > > It's interesting that the word they've chosen is "contain", not "retain".
> > Well, "retain" would imply I can't change it, which would be even worse.
>
> No, retain would just mean you couldn't remove it -- it's also what
> the Affero GPL requires. "Contain" is stronger -- it means if it's not
> already there, you have to add it.
>
> > > OTOH, at its absolute worst, it doesn't make GPLv3 stuff that doesn't make
> > > use of that option non-free.
> > I think you're the third person to say something along those lines: "be
> > thankful, it could be a lot worse".
>
> I think you're underestimating just how bad some of us expected the
> GPLv3 draft to be. :)
>
> > It's still endorsing an extremely
> > onerous class of restriction, implying that it's acceptable, helpful,
> > and that the classes of application screwed over by it is unimportant.
> > It's discouraging that people are thankful that's "all it is" ...
>
> The Affero license came out in 2002, at which point flash cards cost
> ~$1/MB; they now seem to cost around 6c/MB. Hard drives, bandwidth,
> etc seem to be similarly better. How hard is it really to satisfy these
> requirements?
It *requires* that you offer it, even when there is no network
available. So I could take some modern GPL3 code with the restriction,
then port it to the original Palm Pilot - and I would have to put a
useless, even uncodable feature in it as required by the license.
>
> (The Affero licenses clause is:
>
> d) If the Program as you received it is intended to interact with
> users through a computer network and if, in the version you received,
> any user interacting with the Program was given the opportunity to
> request transmission to that user of the Program's complete source
> code, you must not remove that facility from your modified version
> of the Program or work based on the Program, and must offer an
> equivalent opportunity for all users interacting with your Program
> through a computer network to request immediate transmission by
> HTTP of the complete source code of your modified version or other
> derivative work.
The affero clause seems to indicate that it only has to allow download
if the program is designed to run over a network - but what if the
network is down? The affero version is slightly better written than
the GPLv3 provision.
>
> There was also an RPSL clause for similar purposes that was more problematic)
Well the RPSL is non-free...
Andrew
--
Andrew Donnellan
http://andrewdonnellan.com
http://ajdlinux.blogspot.com
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