Re: one of the many reasons why removing non-free is a dumb idea
On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 02:08:59PM +0100, Michael Banck wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 12:58:49PM +0100, Sven Luther wrote:
> > 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.
>
> In the context of this discussion, do you think that the fact that Ocaml
> was in non-free was of any significance, or was it rather your
I think yes, because it accruded my credibility with upstream, and thus
made them more receptive to my arguments.
> personal contact/persuasion that made the license change possible? Or
> did you only initiate the discussion because you were maintaing Ocaml in
> non-free?
I contacted them as debian maintainer of ocaml, and the package was
non-free at that time, and almost orphaned by its previous maintainer.
> FWIW, I've convinced a couple of authors to license their semi-free
> (which in my context usually means: only free for academic use) under a
> true Free Software license, without having the package in non-free. One
Sure, but this will not work for everyone.
> could even argue that once a package is in non-free that might be good
> enough for some upstreams, so they don't feel the urge to relicense in
> order to get their stuff into main. Every case is different.
Yep, i agree. But once we don't support non-free anymore, only our users
lose.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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