1 |
Your retirement demonstration brings up a good point. Unless |
2 |
specifically indicated, a license change is neither retroactive nor |
3 |
proactive; if the user agreed to the original license, they are under |
4 |
the original license so long as they don't change their software (unless |
5 |
the license is also time-limited in some way). If an updated version of |
6 |
the program now comes with an updated (i.e. pay me $1,000,000 dollars) |
7 |
license, it's up to the developer responsible for the ebuild to take |
8 |
that into account, which will most definitely require a new |
9 |
ACCEPT_LICENSE value. |
10 |
|
11 |
This will need to be taken into account when writing up an |
12 |
"ACCEPT_LICENSE" policy - every time a license changes, even if it is a |
13 |
very minor wording change, the license values have to change as well. |
14 |
If VMware, for example, adds a clause to their license agreement, this |
15 |
needs to be reflected with a new license value (let's call it, for the |
16 |
sake of discussion, 'vmware-2'). If they later add another one, that |
17 |
means a vmware-3 license is needed, and so on and so forth. |
18 |
|
19 |
I'm certainly with you on not allowing * for licenses, but as has also |
20 |
been suggested here, I'm completely against a default that only allows |
21 |
includes OSI/FSF-approved software. As often as possible, users should |
22 |
be able to just "emerge someprog" and have "someprog" be installed. The |
23 |
default should include all licenses that don't require explicit license |
24 |
acceptance for installation - vmware is a good example - so that adding |
25 |
an ACCEPT_LICENSE option to portage does not require Gentoo users to do |
26 |
anything more than they have to now, but more easily allows packages |
27 |
that require explicit license acceptance. |
28 |
|
29 |
However, we _do_ need to support a "-*" option, to allow the free |
30 |
software jihadists to have their way, without inconveniencing the rest |
31 |
of us. The fact that I've seen comments in this thread to the effect of |
32 |
"having a choice of free and non-free software is not a choice," or |
33 |
"everyone should have a choice only as long as it's the same thing I |
34 |
choose" truly saddens me. |
35 |
|
36 |
-- Jason Rhinelander |
37 |
-- Gossamer Threads, Inc. |
38 |
|
39 |
|
40 |
Bob Miller wrote: |
41 |
> Christian Birchinger wrote: |
42 |
> |
43 |
> |
44 |
>>It might sound a bit rude but i think the defaults should be |
45 |
>>defined that most of the time only zealots need to tweak |
46 |
>>them. I think most users don't care about most licenses and |
47 |
>>shouldn't need to mess with this. |
48 |
> |
49 |
> |
50 |
> I've seen several people express this attitude, and I like it a lot. |
51 |
> |
52 |
> Let me tell you about my retirement plan. I'm going to write a game, |
53 |
> Linux-only, make it good enough that a few hundred of you will emerge |
54 |
> it and try it out. Then I'll change the license agreement so that |
55 |
> next time you emerge the game you'll owe me $1million US. Since |
56 |
> you all have ACCEPT_LICENSES="*" as the default, you'll all accept my |
57 |
> new license, I'll take you all to court (after subpoenaing apache logs |
58 |
> from all the mirrors so I know who you are, and subpoenaing your |
59 |
> make.conf and make.globals to prove you accepted the license), and sue |
60 |
> you for my license fee. If I can recover 1% of what you'll all owe |
61 |
> me, I'll be happy enough. |
62 |
> |
63 |
> Okay, that's NOT REALLY my plan. I'm at least slightly ethical. (-: |
64 |
> But it illustrates why you don't under any circumstances want |
65 |
> ACCEPT_LICENSES="*", either as the default or as an option. Accepting |
66 |
> a license has consequences, and those consequences can hurt you.* I'd |
67 |
> recommend against letting the parser recognize a wildcard for licenses |
68 |
> -- there's just too much danger for people who don't know any better |
69 |
> to hurt themselves. |
70 |
> |
71 |
> That's my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. |
72 |
> |
73 |
> |
74 |
> * For a real life example that's somewhat less heinous, consider the |
75 |
> BitKeeper license. |
76 |
|
77 |
|
78 |
-- |
79 |
gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list |