On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 09:06:22AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: > Having slept on it, I've decided that in the specific case of the QPL, this > particular situation is not a problem for Debian, but ONLY because we can > avoid the whole issue by making the items in question available to the > general public (which we do).
Not being a problem for Debian only means that it can be legally distributed, not that it's DFSG-free. > Unfortunately, since there's no clear definition of "general public", I > can't give this clause the all clear, since it might require providing > availability to embargoed countries, or to people without computers(!), but > if the author takes a reasonable view of "general public" (which is a bit of > a nightmare to actually define without going nuts), I don't think we will > have too much of a problem. > > We're taking a similar path with the GPL, anyway -- the non-freeness of 3b > and 3c is OK because we're distributing under 3a. How Debian distributes a work does not determine whether it's free or not. The non-freeness of 3b and 3c[1] is OK because 3a, alone, is sufficient to make the license DFSG-free; 3b and 3c are merely additional permissions on top of that, and additional permissions never make a license less free. (None of this is related to which options Debian actually exercises.) > By analogy, the > non-freeness of compelled unrelated distribution of linked items is OK(ish) > because we're taking the "publically available" route. If we believed that it acceptable to require people to make modifications to the general public, then the situation might be comparable; but I believe that most of us, at least, do not. A workaround like this being acceptable for Debian's own use doesn't mean that it's free. [1] if any; I believe it is, but due to 3a, there hasn't been a need to come to a real consensus on this -- Glenn Maynard
