Re: Free as in speech, but not as in beer
- To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org
- Subject: Re: Free as in speech, but not as in beer
- From: Paul van der Vlis <paul@vandervlis.nl>
- Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 10:56:23 +0200
- Message-id: <[🔎] mfgbro$4r1$1@ger.gmane.org>
- In-reply-to: <20150401085224.efbf5ecb26bb1bb38990530a@bitmessage.ch>
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Op 31-03-15 om 23:52 schreef Riley Baird:
> The constitution refers to licenses, but it has come to be understood
> that the upstream interpretation of, *and intentions behind*, the
> license forms part of this definition.
>
> For example, PINE had a MIT-style license, but upstream interpreted
> this to mean that both modification and distribution were permitted,
> but not distribution of modified copies. The solution wasn't to declare
> all MIT-style licenses non-free, but rather to declare such licenses
> non-free only when applied to PINE.
You have a point. But I think PINE is wrong.
> Before you argue that you are not like PINE, and you are granting full
> permissions under the AGPL, and are only making a request, note that
> the above case was only cited as precedent for the constitutional
> understanding of licenses.
>
> In your case, you are trying to make restrictions without putting them
> in the copyright license, and thinking that you can get around the
> constitution that way. However, your intention is to apply a
> non-legally enforcable restriction that, were it in a license, would
> immediately and obviously fail the DFSG, at the expense of Debian's
> users. And that you threatened to "friendly request" that the software
> be removed from Debian should we fail to meet your wishes, is evidence
> that you are trying to (non-legally) force Debian to adopt a licensing
> scheme contrary to its values.
Realize that it's not my software. For me this is an "academic
discussion" about free software. What I see is that free software as in
speech, what's not free as in beer, is a bit nonsense. At the moment.
You can use that to sell some hardware, like a DVD or USB stick.
>>> In any case, this only matters if you want the software to go into
>>> main. You'd *definitely* be able to get it into non-free, and it isn't
>>> that hard to tell users to edit their /etc/apt/sources.list to add the
>>> non-free repository. Being "only" in non-free is nothing to be ashamed
>>> of. Many of the GNU manuals are there because they use the GFDL with
>>> invariant sections.
>>
>> Do you want to put free software into nonfree?
>
> Not if it's intentionally broken.
You have a point.
> In that case, I'd rather keep it out
> of the archive altogether.
>
>>> Also, it's worth noting that most people in the Linux world are not as
>>> obsessed with freedom as Debian. :)
>>
>> Do you mean freedom as in beer?
>
> Yes. Are you happy now?
Yes, I like clearness ;-)
>> I think the problem is, that Debian has no repository for this kind of
>> software.
>
> Exactly. We don't. And I think that from the discussion on this thread,
> it is obvious that we won't be making one. Go to Ubuntu and try to sell
> them on your idea.
I am not interested in Ubuntu. I am not interested in selling.
With regards,
Paul van der Vlis.
--
Paul van der Vlis Linux systeembeheer, Groningen
http://www.vandervlis.nl/
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