On Mon, 28 May 2001, Walter Landry wrote: >>>Also, the court specifically said that "best effort"=="act in good >>>faith". I don't see how you say that someone who uses the software >>>but has no intention of ever contributing back changes (because their >>>boss told them not to) is acting in good faith. The software should >>>still not go in main. >> >>Fine, whatever, file the damn bugs against scheme <=7.4 then. Option C >>was clause 2 of the scheme license. >> >>http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/projects/scheme/7.4/license.html > >On debian, I could only find mit-scheme version 7.5. That release is >under the GPL, so there is no need for a bug report.
Well, now! Now we get into interesting things... Okay, so there's no mit-scheme licensed software in Debian (I just spent too much time looking: &*%^ whoever made the change to the package webpages that they don't link to copyright...). I figured that mit-scheme dated back a little longer than it did... >In any case, it would be useful to have a consensus on debian-legal >about this issue. Do you agree that the license makes it non-free, or >are you just tired of arguing? Mostly I was under the impression that mit-scheme was a LOT older in Debian than it actually was. Basically, I believe that Debian-Legal really needs a good dose of _Stare Decisis_ (sp?), and if a decision on a particular license is reversed, the "winning side" should be prepared to send out bug reports or RFPs. All this is academic, and I have no recollection of the MIT scheme license ever becoming an issue, and there's no packages with the license in Debian or non-free, so we're on virgin ground here. In which case, I still maintain that the "best effort" is barely good enough to make it within main, but not so convinced that I'm willing to take on the universe single handedly about it. I'm thinking that the request with no requirement (option b) is good enough for both of us, and given the three alternatives, it's the one that >I< would prefer to be bound by. Having pointed out the compromise route, let me now go into why I think that "best effort" is not that onerous. Basically, making a one-off best effort to get the changes into the hands of one person is less onerous than providing changes to all comers for three years (GPL clause 3b). To be more exact, the license may try to restrict your use, but I believe that that is impossible _prima facie_: that implies some "click-wrap" or "shrink-wrap" license, and under the present law, that is just not feasable. Therefore this license must only deal with copying. Since it only deals with copying, this means you may only make copies of the program available if you try to provide the changes upstream. If you can't provide the changes upstream because of political reasons, what the HELL are you doing making them available to the general public? You may note that this hinges on the fact that a use requirement is unenforcable by definition, so therefore should be reread to a copying requirement. Since I am not too happy with this (allowing reinterpretation is a slippery slope I don't like being on...), you can see why I am not too hot on pushing the issue, and I really don't want to send out any RFPs this week anyway :) >Regards, >Walter Landry >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with suitable application of High Explosives. Who is John Galt? [EMAIL PROTECTED], that's who!