----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Rafn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > The biggest point in this whole discussion is this simple > > fact: if I do not insert either a must-publish or a must-supply > > clause in my license they can (and probably will) claim that > > their source is available since they'd have to give it to their > > customers - who'd refuse to do anything but store them > > passively. > > IMO, such an ability is absolutely required by open-source software. The > chinese dissident case (Imagine a group of people who want to modify and > share software among themselves, but who will be executed if it is > discovered that they are working on this) is one common way to phrase this > requirement. --> You raise a touchy point. I'll give you two replies. 1) Any solution that I would provide would equally apply to terrorist groups. Replace the Chinese dissidents with Al-Qaeda members - their situations are comparable but the way we think about their motives and goals are utterly opposite! 2) I find it hard to believe that I should feel compelled to help these dissidents to solve their problems, however sympathetic their cause may seem. And if I would I'd still have to solve the conundrum above - without discriminating (see OSD). > This is the choice of such customers. They have source, so they have > control of thier systems. With luck, they're likely to ask you for help > (being the original author) if they decide something is wrong. --> They have their software vendors for support. They pay big bucks for support - no way are they going to ask for help from outsiders. > > As Chris said: a license needs teeth, and this one I deem > > to be one very important canine. > > It needs teeth to protect the software recipients from the software > authors. Teeth that protect an author from the recipients are the > opposite of free. --> It works both ways: users need protection from authors, *and* authors need protection from users who would prefer to both have my cookie (software) and eat it (resell without publishing). > > Is a must-supply (to copyright holder, that is) clause > > preferable over a must-publish (to the public, that is) > > clause, or vice versa. > > Neither qualify as acceptible in my book. --> Not even when there is also an option not to distribute at all? I am not intending that *any* change be published - I only want to enforce that *if* changes are distributed, *then* they must be made available to the public. > I'd be interested to hear > from OSI board members whether this is an area where "free" as commonly > used by the FSF and Debian differs from "open source" as used by OSI. --> It would be very nice to know their opinion. Kind regards, Abe F. Kornelis. -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3