On Sat, Jun 15, 2002 at 08:58:25PM -0400, Zephaniah E. Hull wrote: > On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 10:13:01PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > Keep it mind what DFSG 6 literally says: > > > > No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor > > > > The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the > > program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not > > restrict the program from being used in a business, or from > > being used for genetic research. > > > > Strictly speaking, if you restrict people in a certain field of endeavor > > from *modifying* or *distributing* the work, you're not violating the > > letter of DFSG 6. > > So you are saying that a license that says something along the lines of: > 'you may use this program in any way, the Debian project may distribute > this program in any way it sees fit, however no one else may distribute > this program in any manner for any reason' > Would be perfectly alright as far as DFSG 6 goes?
That's correct.
> I would argue that distributing is a form of use.
You could argue that, but many licenses take what I would interpret as a
contrary position:
(GNU GPL)
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running
the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is
covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
(independent of having been made by running the Program).
> (Yes, this license would violate 1, 5, and 8 even if 6 is fine, but it
> makes the point.)
I have no problem with Debian interpreting DFSG 6 more broadly that it
is written, to include all of the freedoms that we normally talk about:
use, modification, copying, and distribution of modified or unmodified
copies.
In fact, I would encourage that interpretation as it is clearly
consonant with the spirit of the DFSG, and I don't know that any package
has ever been permitted into main that had a license contrary to this
spirit but compliant with the letter of DFSG 6.
Just one example why I think we (Debian) need the freedom to amend the
DFSG, "foundational document" or not.
--
G. Branden Robinson | The best place to hide something is
Debian GNU/Linux | in documentation.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- Ethan Benson
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
pgpTvfBdZMIVU.pgp
Description: PGP signature
