On Friday, March 15, 2002, at 12:04 a, Russell Nelson wrote: > Hrm. I think that the GPL was simply acclaimed as an Open Source > license. I'm not sure it actually qualifies as such, now that I see > this note. OSD#3 says that the license must allow modifications. We > have always interpreted that to mean that the license may not disallow > modifications.
I think that the correct interpretation - the one which most accurately reflects the spirit of free software- is that which reflects that there are more and less appropriate restrictions on modification. The purpose of the GPL restriction is to ensure that the user is aware of the license under which the program is available. It is not substantially different from the requirement that files that have changed be prominently marked as such; there is a restriction on modification that you can not modify something without marking it as modified. This is also not substantially different from restricting modification from removing copyright notices. These are The purpose of other licenses (that have not been approved) that restrict modification has generally been to get around the spirit of OSD#7. > We have never removed OSI approval for any license, so I'm sure that > the GPL is in no danger of not being an Open Source license. However, > I'll take a good hard look at any license which doesn't permit any and > all modifications to a program. I don't think this is the right approach. If the OSD precludes the GPL, in your opinion, then either your opinion or the OSD needs to change such that that is not the case. If a future revision of the GPL fails because of this opinion, something is wrong; if a future revision of the GPL passes because an earlier version passed, something is wrong. All licenses should at all times be passable by the OSD; this is why it is my opinion as well that licenses should be certified or not based on the spirit of open source, so that as the OSD is refined licenses that were certified become uncertifiable. > If it's in the documentation, such a notice is displayed. It > says nothing about that notice having to be displayed by the software > itself, whereas the GPLv2 specifically says that the program must > display the message. This is a false dichotomy. The documentation is part of the software when it is included in the package and under the same execution of a license. Restrictions on modification to documents are restrictions on modification full stop. [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
