Matthew Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I consider that to be a fee consistent with the expansion of Free Software. >In order to distribute modified binaries, I have to licence my source to the >recipient as well. That has clear freedom-enhancing properties (Now With >Freesol, for added Freeness!) The QPL says I must give a carte-blanche >licence to the initial developer of the work I modify. I don't see how that >is enhancing Free Software.
The reason I feel this makes approximately no real difference is the following: 1) We (that is, Debian) generally assume that copyleft licenses strengthen free software more than BSD style licenses. 2) In the case of a BSD-style license with a QPL-style forced distribution upstream clause, there would be no need for a QPL-style permissions grant. Upstream could subsume it into their closed product anyway. 3) The QPL is closer to a copyleft than a BSD license. In most cases it safeguards the availability of source. I would argue that there are no cases in which the QPL is "worse" than a BSD-style license that required copies to be given to the upstream author, and in most cases it's "better". As a result, I think the argument collapses to the forced distribution clause rather than the permissions grant clause. -- Matthew Garrett | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
