Re: Taking a position on anti-patent licenses (was ' Re: Bug#289856: mdnsresponder: Wrong license')
Nick proposed:
> > Debian accepts that it may in certain circumstances be desirable
> > (or at least acceptable) for software licenses to limit certain
> > freedoms in order better to protect Free Software as a whole.
Start with something uncontroversial and then build to:
[...]
> > In the light of the threat that software patents pose to Free
> > Software, we believe that it is likewise acceptable for software
> > licenses to place conditions on the use of software patents
> > against Free Software authors and distributors.
...trying to get "pet a cat"-style conditions allowed through!
Sorry, but I don't think I can support the suggestion that licenses
that die on actions not related to the covered work are reasonable,
let alone agreeing with the DFSG.
> The intention would be to decide which restrictions might be acceptable
> once/if we decide that some might be; I think we'd have a better chance of
> having a sensible discussion that way round :-)
Maybe, but some things seem clearly off-limits to me. Licences that
attempt to restrict acts that don't involve the software, for example.
It's also difficult to discuss this in abstract terms. If there was a
collection of cases, that might help figure out where the boundary is.
It seems to be too early for that, though.
I think I agree with Josh's alternate at the moment.
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