Re: draft-bradner-rfc-extracts-00.txt

[Don Armstrong <[e-mail]>]

As this is (probably) not particularly on topic for this list, please
feel free to respond privately if clarification on any of the points
is required.

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Bill Sommerfeld wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-02-11 at 03:48, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> > That may fail the "Desert Island" test, which some organization
> > appear to be concerned with, compare
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines>. It
> > may be helpful to review <http://www.debian.org/social_contract>
> > to understand the rationale behind such requirements.
> 
> I read these pages. Maybe I'm just dense but I don't see how the
> desert island test follows from either the social contract or the
> DFSG.

It follows from DFSG §5 and §6.[1]

The basic premise of the desert island test is that a license should
not force an individual on a desert island to be in violation of the
license merely because they cannot communicate with the world at
large. See [2] and the thread that follows for much more information.

> Moreover, the open source initiative says it uses
> http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php, which is essentially
> the same as the DFSG, to evaluate licenses,

This is a common misconception. The OSI applies the OSD with totally
different ends in mind. First, they evaluate licenses, whereas the
DSFG and debian-legal evaluate software that is under a license.
Secondly, the groups operate at cross purposes. The OSD is used to
indicate that a license is "open source" and rubber stamp licenses
that comply with the definition, even if they are very much against
the spirit of the Free Software movement. Debian uses the DFSG to
preserve the freedom of its users to modify, use, and redistribute
works that are actually included in Debian.

> if an isolated person is physically incapable of notifying the
> author of changes, they are also physically incapable of requesting
> the sources from the author).

There is a fundamental difference between an additional grant (You may
request source code from the author) and a requirement (You must
contact the original author.) As such, the desert island test (and its
cousin, the dissident test) applies to the latter, but not the former.


Don Armstrong

1: http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
2: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00437.html
-- 
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is
not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a
way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
 -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu

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