Re: Desert island test
Ken Arromdee <arromdee@rahul.net> wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, MJ Ray wrote about the bloody lunatic test:
> > In that case and if the lunatic is truthful, no software under the GPL is free
> > for 'you'. However, that's the fault of the lunatic and not the software or
> > its licence. IMO the correct bugfix is to cancel out the lunatic.
>
> I could equally use that reasoning for the mandatory redistribution case.
> No software under that license is free for you, but that's the fault of the
> situation and not the license. The bugfix is to get off the island.
>
> It's pretty similar to the bloody lunatic test; the license says you
> can't distribute unless you follow some condition (distribute source/send
> changes off the island), but an external force having nothing to do with the
> author of the software forces you not to follow the condition. Why is it
> the fault of the external force in one case and the fault of the license in
> the other?
One can spot whether it's the fault of the licence in 99% of problems
by asking whether a change to the licence could remove the problem.
A change to the licence could allow desert island hacking.
No change to the licence could stop the bloody lunatic.
Hope that explains,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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