On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 07:47:48PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > I can't see a reason why you wouldn't make the source available by bittorrent > too.
Because if only a few people are downloading the source, it's a waste of time. But it's more intended as an example of "is this allowed?", and what I'm more curious about is the previous example: using a custom transfer mechanism for the binary, which doesn't make sense for source, and using a more general protocol for source. > > > > > d) They may require that the work contain functioning facilities that > > > It's interesting that the word they've chosen is "contain", not "retain". > > Well, "retain" would imply I can't change it, which would be even worse. > > No, retain would just mean you couldn't remove it -- it's also what > the Affero GPL requires. "Contain" is stronger -- it means if it's not > already there, you have to add it. I don't get that from "retain", because changing something removes a part of it, replacing it with something else. If I modify a work, I'm retaining only part. > I think you're underestimating just how bad some of us expected the > GPLv3 draft to be. :) Maybe the GFDL was all just a ploy to buy them more latitude with GPLv3, then. :) > > It's still endorsing an extremely > > onerous class of restriction, implying that it's acceptable, helpful, > > and that the classes of application screwed over by it is unimportant. > > It's discouraging that people are thankful that's "all it is" ... > > The Affero license came out in 2002, at which point flash cards cost > ~$1/MB; they now seem to cost around 6c/MB. Hard drives, bandwidth, > etc seem to be similarly better. How hard is it really to satisfy these > requirements? On a device with 16k of flash ROM, pretty hard. I recently did some work on such devices (in this case, Atmel-based chips), that talked to joysticks and sent data over a serial port. They had no way of talking to a user (the serial communication was one-way). Do you think it's reasonable to require that I have a mechanism to "request transmission to that user of the Program's complete source code"? The source code was 80k; adding a "6c/MB" storage device to hold it, implementing two-way communications and adding a protocol to do the work, and implementing a program to run on a PC to do the requesting would probably have doubled development time. > (The Affero licenses clause is: > > d) If the Program as you received it is intended to interact with > users through a computer network and if, in the version you received, That's the basic flaw: it assumes that if the program is intended to interact with users through a computer network, then all derived versions will be, too, and the whole thing breaks down when that's not true. > any user interacting with the Program was given the opportunity to > request transmission to that user of the Program's complete source > code, you must not remove that facility from your modified version > of the Program or work based on the Program, and must offer an > equivalent opportunity for all users interacting with your Program > through a computer network to request immediate transmission by > HTTP of the complete source code of your modified version or other > derivative work. Wow. This even specifies the protocol you must use. I hope the GPLv3's exception isn't meant to extend to that. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
