NB: quotations are reordered by argument. On Wed, Jun 18, 2003 at 02:22:19PM -0400, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: DB>> The issue of storage is more controversial, all I can give is my DB>> personal opinion that it is fair to expect that creators keep DB>> track of at least their own work, AD> I don't think its reasonable to expect me to keep track of every AD> single change I've ever made;
Did you notice that I limit this to _published_ modifications? AD> to store that indefinitely; etc. <...> AD> for eternity[0]. That, especially for large works, is a significant AD> expense. I think adding the same condition as in GPL 3(b) would solve this problem in the same way: 3 years is certainly less than "forever minus 1 day". AD> In order for this scheme to work, authors of works would have to AD> keep copies of their work, <...> AD> (Just imagine that every time you patched XFree, you had to keep AD> the entire XFree tree around. Ouch.) There is difference between full copies of each version and revision history (e.g. CVS repository). Everyone already uses version control systems, this would just make it required by a license. Technically, GPL creates similar requirement of using the source instead of hacking on binary. AD> in the same network-accessible location, Where did I say that? Does GPL require that source is available "in the same network-accessible location"? It just has to be available. AD> I don't think a free license can require much more than "if you AD> distribute this, give source under the same terms." It certainly AD> can't require me to spend an indefinite amount of money keeping AD> stuff around years after I'm dead. The only difference between source as a source code and source as a revision history is size, and I intentionally limited your responsibility to only the modifications that you make, in order to guarantee that both source size and amount of effort and money spent is finite and marginal in comparison with effort and money spent on producing the modification in question. -- Dmitry Borodaenko
