Re: Classification of the APSL as non-DFSG-compliant
On Mon, Apr 20, 2020 at 10:06:23AM +0200, Mihai Moldovan wrote:
> * On 4/20/20 9:03 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> > Secondly, for the APSL-1.2, it seems that the only clause that makes the
> > license non-DFSG-compliant is this one:
> >
> > > (c) You must make Source Code of all Your Deployed Modifications publicly
> > > available under the terms of this License, including the license grants
> > > set forth in Section 3 below, for as long as you Deploy the Covered Code
> > > or twelve (12) months from the date of initial Deployment, whichever is
> > > longer. You should preferably distribute the Source Code of Your Deployed
> > > Modifications electronically (e.g. download from a web site); and
> >
> > It was claimed in [6] that this clause makes the APSL-1.2 non-DFSG-compliant as it's
> > not possible for Debian to keep every single modification around for at least
> > 12 months.
> >
> > This claim may have been valid in 2001, but I think it does not hold up for
> > 2020 since source code to packaging in Debian is usually maintained in
> > Salsa or Github and therefore keeping all modifications available for 12
> > months and longer, plus there is Debian Snapshots [7] which keeps a older
> > versions of a package around as well - including source code.
>
> It may or may not fail the Desert Island Test, depending on how broad "publicly"
> is interpreted.
For sure it fails the Dissident Test.
> While it may not be a huge (technical) problem for the Debian Project to comply
> to this term specifically, any user (and modifier) of this code would need to
> find a way to publish their own modifications for at least the given time - and
> maybe even longer based on their "deployment" (which includes current usage).
> This sounds like a pretty difficult thing to do for individuals.
>
>
>
> Mihai
>
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