FS/OSS license: not quite enough of a requirement
Josh Boyer
jwboyer at jdub.homelinux.org
Wed May 9 23:40:42 UTC 2007
On Wed, 2007-05-09 at 20:33 -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>
> Omitting sources is just one of many ways people came up with to
> deprive users of freedom.
>
> Another possibility is that of restrictive patent licenses, and the
> recent creative patent agreements we recently learned about, such as
> that between Microsoft and Novell.
Restrictive patent licenses such as what? I know of no such license
that is usable for a package in Fedora.
And Fedora cannot do anything about the Microsoft/Novell deal. They are
exercising a loophole in the GPL. How is Fedora supposed to fight that?
> Yet another possibility would be trademark agreements that effectively
> limited Fedora users' freedoms.
Such as the one with the Mozilla for Firefox/Thunderbird? That is an
issue to take to the Board.
> It would be far more comforting if Fedora committed itself to respect
> its users' freedoms in the general terms established by the FSD and
> the OSD, rather than to commit itself to not disrespect them in some
> particular ways.
We _do_ use the OSD/OSI definition. It's the very first license
category on that page. The ones that follow are actually more
restrictive.
josh
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