In replying to: > Is a must-supply (to copyright holder, that is) clause > preferable over a must-publish (to the public, that is) > clause, or vice versa.
Mark Rafn wrote: > Neither qualify as acceptible in my book. I'd be interested to hear > from OSI board members whether this is an area where "free" as commonly > used by the FSF and Debian differs from "open source" as used by OSI. Actually, as I understand it a must-xxx clause is closer to the definition of free-software than to "open source". It is the GPL which established the viral nature, if you include free software in your program, you must provide it to your customers. The point of must-xxx clauses is to close a loophole where downstream authors can use the software in such a way that the effect is that it becomes closed source (un-free). If I write a piece of software and give it away under an open source or free software license, it is disturbing and offensive to discover that the software is used "internally" by a corporation to proprietary advantage, while the clients of that corporation (who are not be recipients of the software, since the use was "internal" to the corporation) are deprived of access to that derived work. A previous discussion on this topic posited the case where the software was incorporated into a web-server. Now, the actual server is not shipped to clients, only the pages it serves. This means that web servers can be used to close/make un-free previously open source software. The developer of the web server does not need to share his enhancements of the software with anyone. A must-xxx clause levels the playing field by eliminating this loophole. The web server author must publish his enhancements just the same as a person delivering the software on cd. -Chris Clark -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
