draft 1.4 of DFSG
The rationale for the license assumes that there will be fewer arguments
about this new draft than the old DFSG. It might be the case that this
much more complicated document elicits more interpretation rather than
less.
> (d) Anyone must be permitted to reverse-engineer it.
I'm not sure this works within U.S. law - at least unless there is an
explicit permission to reverse-engineer in the license, in which case
you'd better make that "after 1999", like the BSD advertising clause.
> g) The licence(s) must not allow the copyright or patent holder(s) to
> terminate the licence(s).
What about automatic termination? That should sometimes be allowed.
I like IBM's "The licenses granted to YOU under this Agreement by a
particular Contributor shall immediately terminate should YOU initiate
legal action against such Contributor for intellectual property
infringement." I want that sort of "liability insurance" in my licenses.
> (c) In the case of restrictions due to patents, the work can in any
> case not be DFSG-free if any of those who control the work and the
> conditions under which it is distributed are software patent
> aggressors.
That rules out a large number of software companies, doesn't it?
I'm not yet sure that the intellectual property battle is best held
at the level of the DFSG/OSD rather than at a higher level.
Note that my informally proposed modifications to the OSD don't make it
larger:
1. Retain the patch exception, while removing the statement that patches
happen at build-time.
2. Change "same license terms" to "terms no more restrictive".
Thanks
Bruce
--
The $70 Billion US "budget surplus" hardly offsets our $5 Trillion national
debt. The debt increased by $133 Billion in the same year we found a
"surplus".
Bruce Perens K6BP bruce@pixar.com 510-620-3502 NCI-1001
Reply to: