<quote who="Steve Langasek" date="Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 11:32:18PM -0800"> > > 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. Anthony also claims that the GPL linking provisions may be over-reaching. I respect Anthony's opinion on these issues and I respect yours but I don't think any of our positions in the project give us any more power to speak the project as a whole. > Perhaps you'd care to comment on > <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/03/msg00380.html>, then? Anthony's comments primarily pertain to the specific language of the AGPL. Most of this langauge has been removed or generalized in the GPLv3 draft. I agree that AGPL language is clumbsy. I'm not sure if it's non-free. I *do* think that the spirit behind the AGPL and Affero-inspired clause in the GPLv3 is fully in line with our principles. *Users* of software should be able to modify their software. Anthony also includes are some more general critiques of the rhetoric used by the author of the Newsforge article which I agree with completely. > 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. It has been argued that providing users of software with source code of the software they are using is in the best interest of those users. That was, after all, an argument at the core of the free software movement and is certainly reflected in the DFSG. The only reason "distribution" is a central concept in free software licenses is that it's a particularly meaningful concept in copyright and was always co-present with "use" a couple decades ago when these licenses were forged. Regards, Mako -- Benjamin Mako Hill mako@debian.org http://mako.cc/
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature