On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 14:03 +0000, MJ Ray wrote: > Lee Braiden wrote: > > You know... with most things in the free software movement, I'm right > > there, > > in total agreement with Stallman and the FSFE and all. Sometimes I wonder > > though... if we agree in principle that some freedoms (such as the freedom > > to > > enslave) should not be given, on the basis that they take freedom from > > others... then why do we flat-out reject additional restrictions? > > Do we flat-out reject additional restrictions? As I understand > the emails from Dave Crossland, it's that Red Hat used the GPLv2 > (which forbids additional restrictions) and then contradicted it > by adding one, leaving others with no valid licence. Basic error.
I'm not sure that's correct; GPLv2 only says licensees may not add additional restrictions (sec. 6). It doesn't talk about the licensor, I can't think of a way in which Red Hat have "broken" the GPL given they framed their extension as additional text, not a change to the GPL itself (hence it's a verbatim copy also). While the end result is obviously more restrictive than the GPLv2, I don't think it's invalid or self-contradictory in anyway - though I'd love to hear other reasons why. > I didn't think additional restrictions were a problem themselves. I think they are in a couple of ways, the main ones being license proliferation and unintended side-effects: you can mitigate against those problems, but it's a sort of "guilty until proven innocent" situation, if you see what I mean. I agree with you in general though; additional restrictions (or, better, more finely-tuned permissions) are not always a bad thing. I suspect in this case the main issue is the use of the noun "exception" in a way which makes a native speaker utterly confused. Getting past that indistinction is the first problem :) Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
