Scripsit Mike Bilow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > 3) If you modify this code, you must keep the message format compatible.
> > That is also non-free. > I disagree here. Dudley is trying to prevent people from making > proprietary "embrace and extend" changes to the message format. Yeah, that's also what Sun is saying each time they pull this one. I'll leave open whether this should be attributed to malice or thoughtlessnes, but I'd like to point out at least two adverse effects: One: This kind of clause gives the author (who is free to ignore his own rules) a de facto monopoly on experiments with alternative ways of doing things. One of the points of free software is that everyone should be free to try out new ways of doing things. The license clause denies the users the freedom to try out and exchange new ideas. We belive that this freedom is one of the most important driving factors for progress in computing - and we like progress. Two: Another very important facet of software freedom is the freedom to adapt old tools to new problems. If I find a program in Debian main which I think can be adapted to solve a problem I have (and which nobody ever thought about before), I expect to be allowed to make that adaptation - even if that means I need to change some of the external interfaces of the program. And I shouldn't need to worry about the fact that my adapted tool does not solve the original problem anymore if the original problem is not what I need to solve. It is OK if the license requires me to document what I changed if I give my changed code to someone else who also needs to solve my new problem - but that is different from the clause above, which says that I must not change the data structures, full stop. If you like section cites better than rationales, please see point 3 of the DFSG. Notice that the DFSG does not allow the license to restrict which kind of modifications are permitted. > This would be something like Debian requiring that no one make proprietary > changes to the .deb file format, We're not talking about proprietary changes (the license of the .deb tools does not allow proprietary deriviates at all, whether or not the file format is changed). We're talking about *any* kind of changes, and requiring that no one make any kind of changes to the .deb file format would be non-free. > or requiring that mail programs comply with RFC822. Which would be non-free. Indeed, where would we be if not long ago somebody had taken a piece of mail software and changed it to use @-style addresses instead of bang paths? That would have been illegal under the kind of license you advocate. > The whole point of Fidonet is that it defines a technical > file format which permits interaction between systems; That's irrelevant to software freedom. If someone wants to modify his system such that he can only communicate with his cousin in Australia, he might have to leave Fidonet - but if the sheer act of doing so gives the author a reason to sue him, the software is not free. -- Henning Makholm "Check the sprog."
