On Mon, 2006-12-18 at 14:32 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: > Alex Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I'm not sure what argument you're making - that the GPL can place extra > > burdens on commercial distributors simply because they're making a > > product? > > Sort of. The licence has to contain some restrictions, so what restrictions > are reasonable?
Well, I disagree with the premise of your statement - I think of licenses as lists of exemptions [from copyright; in this case], not a list of restrictions. The default case is that something is completely restricted; the license doesn't need to add any. I also wouldn't agree with the statement that "[f]or acts that involve commerce and organisations, it's ok to add more restrictions". I believe everyone should get the same license. How much money you make, for example, should be inconsequential. However, I think it's something of a straw man argument anyway. You're assuming that the extra burden falls squarely on those easily able to shoulder such a burden. While I suspect that is who the clause is aimed at, there is no such limitation in the clause: my point is that it is broader. For example, you claimed that the firewall example I gave would only affect hardware manufacturers, when clearly it doesn't. I think attempting to divide between "commercial" and "non-commercial" use is a largely problematic task anyway. While it's usually quite easy to label certain uses as "commercial", e.g. RedHat supplying a maintained and supported distribution for £££, there are many that aren't. Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
