Francesco Poli wrote:
Not-quite-DFSG-free == non-free, even though close to the freeness
boundary == proprietary, even though close to the freeness boundary
By definition, whatever is not free, is proprietary.
I was using proprietary in what I thought was its fairly common meaning,
i.e. closed source, controlled by only one company.
I have no intention of getting into a fight about whether the Affero
additional restriction is acceptable or free or whatever. The FSF thinks
it's free; other people disagree. Their reasons are credible. I don't
like it.
But my point is that you are acting as if this exception turns all GPLed
code into LGPLed code - i.e. Microsoft can come along and link it into
Windows, or whatever. But that's obviously not true.
The only non-GPLed code your GPLed code can be linked with is code that
also follows the GPL exactly _except_ that it has a single additional
restriction on modification to a small part of it. This may not be a
good thing, but it's not even on the same planet as some of the
scenarios the phrase "being able to link with proprietary code" could cover.
And considering the small amount of code actually covered by the Affero
GPL (and that there's very little evidence that version 2 of the Affero
GPL will cause it to suddenly surge in popularity) then it's also very
unlikely that code you write will end up in this situation.
Lastly, the FSF is keeping their promises. If you can think of a better
way for them to do so (and this way is already a whole load better than
their last attempt), then suggest it.
So I'd suggest you concentrate your efforts on the other points you made
in your analysis, which were good and reasonable. In order to facilitate
this, I'm not going to contribute further to this discussion, because
its very continuance is counter-productive to its point.
The problem is that (if this clause is not dropped) GPLv3'd code will
be linkable to non-free-restriction-encumbered code.
That's not in the spirit of the GNU GPL v2.
True. And Debian can easily refuse to distribute applications so linked.
Gerv
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