On Sun, 22 Jun 2003, Chuck Swiger wrote: > [ ...I haven't seen this message appear on the list; resend... ] > > Mark Rafn wrote: > > It may not be pertinent to the licensor's need. I very much hope it is > > pertinent to OSI's need to restrict use of it's service mark only to > > software which can be freely modified. > > Does OSD #3 mean that "The license must allow [ALL] modifications and derived > works, ...", without any restrictions?
IMO, pretty much yes. > If the OSD should be interpreted to mandate that a compliant license may > not forbid deliberately broken or malicious redistributions, then my > frank opinion is that the OSD should be changed. It's nearly impossible to define "deliberately broken or malicious" in such a way that would make the result free enough to be called open-source. It's very valid to re-use code in a way that violates standards, spoofs headers to interoperate with other programs, etc. Heck, even trying to specify that this code cannot be used in self-propagating malware would violate the "fields of endeavor" clause of the OSD. It's perfectly reasonable to demand that forks are distinguished from the original "official" version, but open-source software does not prevent modifications just because we don't approve of the use. -- Mark Rafn [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.dagon.net/> -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3