I may be missing some of the point here, but the way I see it, there is a
distinct desire to have a license provided with the software indicating what
is and isn't allowed. This is a fairly normal practice in the software
industry (open and closed source alike).
IMHO, the license included with the software serves as a static marker of
sorts. While future versions of the license may change and be included with
future versions of the software, they don't apply to previous versions of
the software that where shipped with another license.
It is this peace of mind that I too would like to see. I'm in no way
attempting to take away the author's right to change a license for their
software. However, if I've accepted one license on a piece of software
because it meets my needs and I can deal with any requirements of the
license, I would like to know that the license is not going to change. This
is not too much to ask.
If the author then wants to put a web page up with the most current version
of the license, great. However, I think there are many others like myself
out there, that would like to see a copy of the license (as it pertains to
the software at the time the software was released) included with the
software.
Note:
If anyone out there knows of a company that successfully changed their
license for software and made those changes effective retroactively, I would
like to know.
Jamin W. Collins
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 3:22 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: secrets and lies
Adam McKenna <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Maybe he'd think about changing dist.html. After he changed it,
> could I then continue distributing this package without fear of
> being sued?
If the new dist.html said no, then it would seem clear that you
couldn't. This is not an ambiguity in the current or potential future
dist.html, but I think I see your point now: you want to know what you
will *always* be allowed to do with qmail, not just what you are
allowed to do today. (Right?)
Well, barring future changes in copyright law (which could potentially
invalidate *any* statement we might make today), you will always be
allowed to patch, compile, back up, and run qmail. You will always be
allowed to distribute your patches, since you hold copyright on them
(I think). Additionally, you can redistribute vanilla qmail today.
You do not have the guarantee that you will always be allowed to
redistribute qmail, but this is not ambiguous - it's clearly, if
implicitly, unspecified. If you agree with this but call it
"ambiguous" instead of "unspecified", then I guess we'll just have to
be more careful how we use such words to avoid confusion.
paul
