On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 11:53:22PM -0500, Benj. Mako Hill wrote: > <quote who="Steve Langasek" date="Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 06:20:25PM -0800"> > > On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 02:00:03AM +0000, Kai Hendry wrote: > > > There is a python library I want to package (#349763) that uses the > > > Affero General Public License (AGPL). > > > http://www.affero.org/oagpl.html > > > I thought I should just check with you guys if the license is OK for > > > Debian. > > No, it is not. The requirement of source redistribution to third > > parties that you are not distributing binaries to is incompatible with > > the DFSG. > I don't think that issue is a closed one. As you and others have > mentioned in other threads, the GPLv3 will probably have a Affero-type > clause. Sure; as a non-default optional clause, though? > Several people, at least, have spoken up in favor of this sort > of clause being both in the spirit of the GPL and the DFSG. Well, the discussion in March 2003 on debian-legal included the input of an ftpmaster who disagrees, so this definitely isn't a case of a fringe minority on -legal holding sway. That doesn't mean Debian can't reconsider this position, of course, but I don't think the presence of an AGPL-like clause in GPLv3 is grounds for reversing that position -- closing the "ASP loophole" causes real problems for real applications that our users use Debian for today, and our users are supposed to be the first priority, yadda yadda. > As it turns out, I tend to be of the opinion that it is important enough > that users be able to have access to the source code of the programs > they use that we can probably sustain a strictly targetted and flexibly > defined limit on modification that serves only to protect this freedom. > We did something similar both for copyleft in general and for > GPLv2(2)(c) in particular. Perhaps you'd care to comment on <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/03/msg00380.html>, then? Anyway, I don't think we've actually done *anything* in particular wrt GPLv2(2)(c). To my knowledge, 2c was never discussed in Debian at all until years after the DFSG was ratified; and 2c has variously been cited as a justification for allowing all kinds of licenses that take away user freedoms, pointed to as a wart on the GPL that should never have existed, and ignored on the grounds that almost none of the software in Debian today actually triggers it. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/
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