> > So, in essence, you think that the DFSG says we must disallow the > > distribution of gcc if its license prevents you distributing copies which > > have been functionally modified to better integrate with microsoft's > > palladium?
On Tue, May 11, 2004 at 05:22:11PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Yes. That's in direct, literal conflict with the DFSG (clause 10). The GPL specifically disallows creation of copies with changes -- no matter how functional -- which include restrictions on the rights of other users of derivatives. > > And, if that is what you think, perhaps you can explain how this point of > > view has our users and the free software community as its top priorities? > > With the DFSG we promise to our users that they can take any software > in main and modify it for any purpose - and distribute such modified > version under the same license as the software they started out > with. "Any purpose" here includes modifications that lets it work with > "microsoft's palladium", whatever this is. We do not promise this. Feel free to quote the promise to me if you disagree. [Note that I'll accept this promise as a simplification of what the DFSG really says, and that it's helpful in understanding the DFSG. However, it's still a simplification.] As an aside, Microsoft's Palladium is currently a mix of software and hardware vaporware, where some claims about its feature set appear to mean that free software would be impossible to use in that environment. [I have no idea how accurate those claims will turn out to be. I'm just using it as an example of a proprietary system.] -- Raul
