Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > OTOH, there are no special purpose lists, such as a list for > licensing issues (such as Debian-Legal). A discussion on that > topic is IMHO too specific for any of these lists.
BTW, this has been a hot topic on debian-legal for some time. They should be kept in the loop of any discussion of generalized copylfet because the issue affects Debian. See for example Branden Robinson's post of this afternoon: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2002/debian-legal-200204/msg00028.html > IMHO, your source data definition is too strict. The GPL one is > not so tight. There, the source code only has to be the > preferred form for modification of the work, not necessarily its > origin. Can there be a case when the entire source code can be derived from the object form of the work and not be its origin? > BTW: this very strict definition causes trouble, e.g. when a > music work contains samples that are not handmade, but ripped > from the object form of other free music works. This way you get > a huge pile of sources together. Not sure I follow -- when you publish a free music work, you don't have to distribute the other free works that you've sampled from ... > I can imagine commercial archives that you can browse with some > web based search engine. If you found what you want, you can > order it on CD. This will propably replace the publishers of > today. Another thing you can do, if you are the author and publisher of some free music works say, is sell a package including both the object form and sources for a price that is profitable. The FSF does this with CD-ROM sets of software. > OTOH, I don't think it is a good idea to force every licensee to > copy 1 GB of source data with each 3 MB of binary data. This > might be considered harassment and lead to license breaches. Noncommercial parties don't have to worry about distributing other people's sources -- they can just copy the binary. > I'm not sure whether or not a license for free music (or > content) should require distribution of the source code at all. Band X makes and records free music. They sell a distribution of it which includes both the sources and object form. You purchase this and share the object form files with your friends on Gnapster. The files include a notice telling where to obtain the sources. Your friends in turn share and redistribute the files elsewhere. Is streaming Internet radio "distribution"?
