Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 04:58:47PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> On 2004-01-07 15:25:22 +0000 Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> >On Wed, 2004-01-07 at 13:37, MJ Ray wrote:
> >>On 2004-01-07 00:05:49 +0000 Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> >>>[...] As Craig said, the act of putting
> >>>a package into non-free has, in and of itself, sometimes led to > 
> >>>licence
> >>>changes.
> >>Can you give a reference for that,
> >smalleiffel, now smarteiffel, was an example.  It went into non-free
> >while RMS negotiated with its authors until it became the GNU Eiffel
> >compiler (and is now in main).
> 
> If RMS negotiated it becoming GNU Eiffel, I doubt it was "the act of 
> putting a package into non-free has, in and of itself" did much to 
> make the change. Probably less than normal, even. I think human 
> dialogue has to be given nearly all the credit for licence changes.

Ocaml did. It was in non-free when i picked it up in 98, and has after
long discussion with upstream become free enough for main. I don't think
it was the only reason for the licence change, but my contact with
upstream and the work i did on the package led to them considering my
opinions more favourably or something such.

Friendly,

Sven Luther