John, thanks for your reply. Please find my comments inserted in between your text.
----- Original Message ----- From: John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > The BXAPL (see http://www.bixoft.nl/english/license.htm) > > currently has both - which is definitely an overkill, > > even though it grants users the right to keep their > > modifications entirely private. That is: one either keeps > > all modifications private, or they are published to > > public in general. Selective distribution is not > > allowed. Users who fail to comply are obligated to > > supply their modifications upon request. > > As to "must publish", I think it's unnecessary. Those who wish to keep > their mods private will do so whether the license allows it or not: > if they sit on the changed version of the software, no one will know > that it even exists. --> And that would be entirely ok with me. > The GPL and the OSL take what I consider to be a reasonable attitude: > you must supply changes in source form to people who have received > the changed version. If the changed version is published to all, the > changes must also be; if the changed version is distributed to a few, > ditto the changes; if the changed version is never distributed, the > changed version need not be either. --> I understand that - it is one of my problems with these licenses: I'd really hate it if modifications were to be distributed within a closed group - not to the public that is. Distributing within closed groups may lead to discrimination. I concur with the OSI that discrimination is undesirable. Is it a good idea to force distribution to the public? Or am I being over-zealous? > Of course, the distributees may > themselves distribute, but at least there is no unlimited liability to > distribute one's changes to anyone who asks for them. > > This is quite separate from the question of whether the change is > *licensed* to all. No matter what the distribution conditions, anyone > who has possession of the change is licensed to use it. --> I agree with the latter, but don't understand the first remark. As far as I can see, all OSI-compliant distros are licensed to the receiver, which makes 'distributing to' functionally equivalent to 'licensing to' - except where receiver does not comply with the license's restrictions, but that's not (yet) relevant when the software is distributed. So how am I to understand your first remark? > The trouble with the usual kind of "must supply" (which I take to mean > "must supply changes to the original author") --> Right indeed. > is the burden of doing so > for those who make small changes to a large number of works -- people > like Linux distro makers and *BSD groups. If they have to push the > changes to the original author, the original author may be difficult > or impossible to find, or (if corporate) may have gone out of business. > It is much better, if you are going to require such a thing, to let the > distro creator push to you a distribution point (such as a Web site) > from which you may pull the changes yourself. --> There you have a point. Both the copyright holder and the contributor may go out of existence - eventually we all do, don't we ;-) Anyway, I was rather thinking of making things optional: 1) keep changes private - no distribution at all 2) distribute to the public 3) distribute & supply to copyright owner Option 1 is obvious, the main difference between choices 2 and 3 would be the requirement to make the modifications public *yourself* or allow the copyright holder to do so in your stead. If you already have a site option 2 might be more attractive, if you don't have a site, or you have one that is not related to the changes or the software, then option 3 might be more attractive since it'd be less of a hassle. Is it a bad idea to allow the contributor a choice as to how the changes are to be made public? > In general, though, I think all these requirements are over-cautious. > Most people do not want to maintain forks indefinitely -- they *want* to > push changes back to you in the hope that you will integrate the changes > into the mainline distribution, and they will get them back automatically. --> Sorry, John. I disagree. I know a few companies who would be willing to pick up my code, fork it and distribute it both to their customers and to their advantage - and never give anything back. As far as I'm concerned, they can make it proprietary if they want to - but *not* under an open-source license! Kind regards, Abe. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3