Picking a license

[Paul Boddie]

On 15 Mai, 03:46, Patrick Maupin <pmau... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 14, 6:52 pm, Paul Boddie <p... at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
> > And suggesting that people have behavioural disorders ("Or because
> > have OCD?") might be a source of amusement to you, or may be a neat
> > debating trick in certain circles you admire, but rest assured that I
> > am neither amused nor impressed, nor are others likely to be.
>
> That was in an honest response to a question you asked "Really, if at
> this point you think I'm playing games with you." where I explained
> that I don't know what to think, because often, when you claimed to be
> addressing my point, you would bring up other red herrings and spend
> more time on those, and often assign positions to me that I never
> took.

You can spare us the excuses. As I said, I was attempting to be
thorough and to explore all possible means of distribution, not least
because this was not your original point - you were originally upset
about Mr Finney's remark, which you still don't accept, but there's
probably no convincing you now - and were then upset at the FSF
definition of a work "based on" or derived from another, leading you
to talk about various strategies for defending potential GPL
violations in the course of copyright infringement litigation. At this
point, it isn't unreasonable to think that you will think of some
other objection to the GPL which you will then have everyone explore.

I have pointed out at least once the section of the GPLv3 which could
reasonably permit someone to receive a binary distribution and there
not be an immediate licence violation, plus an FAQ entry which more or
less addresses the very situation you describe, and I even provided a
link to a discussion of these very issues on the debian-legal mailing
list. You can repeat as often as you like that you don't believe it,
but I have explained my understanding of precisely the "giving CD to a
friend" situation. To summarise: your friend gets the sources from the
same place as the binaries, which is from you. (The SFLC document
seems to treat section 6(d) of GPLv3 as being about Internet
distribution, but given that the term "network server" is only
mentioned after two sentences, and only then in the conditional form,
I regard the FAQ entry I referred to as offering relevant guidance,
and even others [*] have considered the text to be subject to similar
interpretation.)

[*] http://www.gerv.net/hacking/gplv3/draft3/

For the GPLv2 the requirement of a written offer appears to be more
dominant, and I believe the physical media actually shipped by Ubuntu
is accompanied by such an offer. If Ubuntu encourages others to share
media (produced in whichever fashion) or software without any written
offer then it is, as I remarked before, a matter that should be
discussed with them. Yes, it is unfortunate that the obligations are
not communicated, and that is one reason why there is a successor to
that licence, but it merely indicates that the balance of obligation
and tolerance in the licence, maintained without enabling the
widespread and malicious circumvention of the licence, is difficult to
achieve. It doesn't invalidate the intent of the licence, and if
anything it validates the adoption of GPLv3 in preference to GPLv2.

[...]

> (BTW, IMO this was one of your better posts in terms of tone and being
> on-point, etc., and I appreciate that.)

As I said before, spare me the condescension. Making a remark that
someone has a behavioural disorder - a matter, whether true or not,
that should have no influence on the course of any discussion -
especially when that person has attempted to provide explanations for
every quibble spontaneously raised over the course of several days,
not only indicates a certain level of hypocrisy, but it indicates that
as far as you are concerned any remark about a person's mental health
or well-being is fair game if it serves to belittle that person's
standing and ridicule what that person has written.

Paul