On Sep 30, 9:43 am, Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED] cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:19:57 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > > Steven D'Aprano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > >> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:04:41 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > >> > You're not free to modify gnuplot and redistribute the result. > > >> > That you're free to distribute patches is nice, but it's not enough > >> > to make the work free. The freedom to help people by giving them an > >> > *already-modified* gnuplot is restricted by the copyright holder. > > >> > It's an artificial restriction on redistribution of derived works, > >> > making them second-class for the prupose of getting them into > >> > people's hands. > > >> Yes it is. It seems a strange, unnecessary restriction. But is it > >> sufficient to make it non-free? I don't think so. > > > I do, because a natural, beneficial act (modify the work and > > redistribute it) that has no technical reason to restrict, is > > artifically restricted. > > We agree that the restriction is artificial, and I think irrational > (although I'd be interested in hearing the gnuplot developers' reasoning > before making a final judgment). > > But I just don't see the requirement that modified software be > distributed in form X (original source + diffs) versus form Y (modified > source in a tar ball) or form Z (an rpm) to be that big a deal. Not > enough to make it "non-free software". > > I simply don't think that having to run some variation on > > patch -i patchfile.patch > > is a requirement so onerous that it makes the gnuplot licence non-free. > Perhaps I'm just more tolerant of eccentricities than you :) What you're missing is that for Free Software (TM) zealots it's a matter of philosophical principle, totally unrelated to how easy is to overcome the restriction. There is not a "practicality beats purity" clause in the FSF Bible. George -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
