Re: Clause 7d

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> Well, I did devise a potentially Free alternative for the infamous clause 7d 
> after an hour or two's thought.
> 
> The key point here was that the clause suffered from specifying means rather 
> than ends, which we have diagnosed as a major source of license drafting 
> errors.  By restricting the functionality of the program and all derivative 
> works, it causes endless trouble.  Instead, I attempted to rewrite this as a 
> restriction which could be imposed on the recipients of the license.
> 
> So here it is:
> "7d. They may require that propagation of a covered work which causes it to 
> have users other than You, must enable all users of the work to make and 
> receive copies of the work."

If all you are trying to do is make the clause more palatable, then I
agree that this is an improvement.  But I still think it is not free.
Please define "user".  In particular, consider these mails

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/03/msg00805.html
  http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/03/msg00856.html

Cheers,
Walter