[PD-dev] Yves Degoyon

[Marc Lavallée]

Le 29 Décembre 2005 21:56, Mathieu Bouchard a écrit :
> On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 ydegoyon at free.fr wrote:
> > we know it's all copyright, all your fake free software attitude ....
>
> I found this in PiDiP's LICENSE.txt :
>
>   "NOT FOR MILITARY OR REPRESSIVE USE !!!"
>
> This goes against FSF/GNU's FSD, rule "Freedom Zero"
>   (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

Yes. But this is only because the FSF wants the user to decide what's good 
or bad.

> And also against OSI's OSD, rule 6
>   (http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php)

Wrong interpretation: the term "military or repressive use" does not relate 
to any speficic activity, because so many fields of endeavor are involved 
in the business of repression. But it complies with rule 5: "No 
Discrimination Against Persons or Groups", because using force against 
people usually involves discrimination.

> And as such, PiDiP is not Free Software. It may not be distributed as
> part of Debian's "main" and thus instead should be put in "non-free".

It's a "modified" BSD licence, it's open and compatible... But this first 
phrase is simply an opinion, and legally almost irrelevent. It's a bit 
weird to use a BSD license and add such a vague statement, knowing that 
OpenBSD was financed by the Pentagon for many years until Theo de Raadt 
expressed its concern about the war in Iraq. B.T.W. the Internet was also 
developed by the Pentagon, so maybe PiDiP should not be downloaded from the 
Internet, since this network is being used for war and repression.

It's not a good idea to add "politically correct" clauses in a license, 
because their interpretations can be too fuzzy. A license is a technical 
document, and moral stances are better included as "legal embodiments", 
like the GPL does so well.

Help, help! I'm being opressed! (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
;-)
--
Marc