On Tue, 2002-08-20 at 20:12, Branden Robinson wrote: > IMO, it is against the spirit of Free Software to require the assignment > of your intellectual property rights in anything for the freedom to > modify someone else's intellectual property.
[...] > I don't think we would hold (3)b as DFSG-free if it said: [pay $100 if you modify] > Agreed? Is the intellectual property of a Debian Developer, or anyone > else, not worth anything? Regardless of what "intellectual property" is worth (I find even the phrase distasteful, but it's hard to avoid it in such discussions), requiring assignment of a completely free license for the new code to the original developer is clearly not in violation of the DFSG. While requiring people to give $100 discriminates against people who don't have $100, or who can't get (american, I assume) dollars for whatever reason, requiring freedom of copyright doesn't discriminate. There's nothing to discriminate against - you're not giving up anything of your own, you're giving somebody else something extra. (You might say "it discriminates against people who don't want to do 'free work' for $CORP," but I argue that this case is no different from the GPL requiring you do 'free work' for the free software community.) I currently see no case to say this fails the DFSG. -- Joe Drew <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "This particular group of cats is mostly self-herding." -- Bdale Garbee
