Re: Anton's amendment

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org> writes:

>> So, would you regard a license which permitted the modification of
>> some features of a program, but not others, to be free?  I would not.
>
> In 1997, at the time of the writing of the DFSG, the BSD clause
> contained the obnoxious advertising clause.  Yet it still made the list
> of 'licenses we consider free'.  Is the advertising clause substantially
> different from an invariant section in intent?

I can't see any case in which the advertising clause restricts a
modification of the program.  Can you?  (Note that it is a *part of
the license*, not a part of the program.)

> I do see differences (mostly that the single sentence the BSD license
> requires is shorter than an FSF essay), but since we are talking about
> _freedom_ here, is this license that says I may not remove a block of 
> text that different than that license that says I may not remove this
> block of text?

The advertising clause does not say that you may not remove a block of
text, except in the incidental clause that the words of the clause are
part of the copyright statement.  And indeed, we have in the past said
that requirements that are there only to preserve an attribution of
credit are not problematic.

Thomas