Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 13:45:31 +0100 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Here is what IBM thinks about using FreeBSD on their newer Message-ID: <20001201134530.H61418@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <200012011219.FAA23538@usr01.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 12:19:16PM %2B0000 References: <20001201114509.B61418@lpt.ens.fr> <200012011219.FAA23538@usr01.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert said on Dec 1, 2000 at 12:19:16: > His ideology may eventually win (IMO, to the detriment of us > all), but I don't think that he is going to be able to force > the issue this way; it is more likely he will slit his own > throat with the attempt. Of course, this was always a > danger of the "or later version of the license". As I said, I think this ASP clause is a bad idea. But I also think ASPs are a bad idea and clueful people will prefer running well-maintained code on their own systems. I don't even think the usual arguments for freeing the code (fixing your own bugs, etc, as in RMS's old story of the printer with the closed-source driver) work for freeing ASP code. What will you do after you fix the bugs: set up your own ASP server? If you can do that you didn't need to use an ASP in the first place. But the "or later version" is an option only, and code which is now distributed under GPL2 can be distributed under GPL2 for all time. Moreover, the author can choose not to allow that option. I seem to remember Linus removing the "or later version" clause for the linux kernel recently, though I may be wrong. > I also see it as being problematic for things like Linux, > which unlike the FSF tools, accept contributions without > having to have the rights granted to a single legal > entity. The problem with that has always been that any > author could claim version differences for their code > contributed to the project. In the linux case, Linus could always refuse to accept patches not contributed under GPL v2. Rahul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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