On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 09:29:36PM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote: > Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > >> > Do you think that the QPL without section 6 is a free software > >> > licence? > >> > >> I am tentatively in favor of that, yes. > > > >> > If YES, how do you argue that section 6 detracts from the permissions > >> > granted by section 3? > >> > >> They do not, since they apply to two different clases of software. > > > > That seems like a contradiction to me. You seem to be saying that the > > QPL without section 6 is a free licence, section 6 does not detract > > from the permissions granted by section 3, and yet we have to look at > > section 6 in detail to tell whether the QPL is free. How does that > > work? > > > >> What is your argumentation to ignore the above and makes as if modified > >> work > >> and linked works are one and the same thing ? > > > > It looks to me like section 6 grants some additional permission in the > > case of mere linking. Without section 6 the entire work would have to > > be QPL (with a licence grant to the initial developer). With section 6 > > only the part that contains the original software has to be QPL; the > > rest can have any free licence, more or less, except that there's an > > additional requirement (6c) that might be problematic. > > > > So the argument here is that the DFSG requires the conditions in QPL 3 > > to be acceptable, and if they are, then the DFSG is satisfied and we > > don't have to look at QPL 6. > > But we do have to look at QPL 6, because there's no way to say "We > accept only the parts in 1-5, not 6; this is a modification under 3, > not a linking under 6." If I modify *and* distribute, I must obey > both of those clauses. Similarly, if I modify *and* link, I must obey > both of those. The QPL authors happened to impose extra restrictions > on linking, and relax a few restrictions, but I think it's quite a > stretch to read this the way you like.
Exactly, thanks Brian. That said, i dislike your "modify *and* link" approach, since a given software can either be a modification of the original software (which can replace it) or link with the original or modified software (and thus use it). I have sever doubts that there exists a case where both clauses happen. I believe that QPL 6 would also probably apply only to software distributed in a separate tarball if you go down to it, but am not entirely sure of it. > In any case, linking is particularly important for OCaml. The OCaml > toplevel is under QPL 6, lumped in with the compiler. Common practice > is to distribute customized toplevels, which use particular extensions Bah, no. That is hardly common practice. It is done for lablgl and both lablgtk though, so you may have a point, and a reason for going upstream with it, maybe asking for a derogation for it. Still both of these software are DFSG free apart from the ocaml dependency that is under discussion, and widely available, so this should not matter in practice. > -- unix.cma, for example. It's a common means of extending the > language. Yeah, but usually the users do it themselves, and not distributing the code. So would we be satisfied if the maketop was excempted from QPL 6c ? I doubt it, since you would then consider also separate files under the compiler which are then reused in other software. Friendly, Sven Luther
