Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Christian Birchinger <joker@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo internal structure
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 22:09:25
Message-Id: 20031126220922.GA26681@netswarm.net
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo internal structure by Bob Miller
1 I think i also wrote something about the difference between
2 liceses which restrict using and those which restrict
3 distribution.
4
5 On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 09:18:35AM -0800, Bob Miller wrote:
6 > Christian Birchinger wrote:
7 >
8 > > It might sound a bit rude but i think the defaults should be
9 > > defined that most of the time only zealots need to tweak
10 > > them. I think most users don't care about most licenses and
11 > > shouldn't need to mess with this.
12 >
13 > I've seen several people express this attitude, and I like it a lot.
14 >
15 > Let me tell you about my retirement plan. I'm going to write a game,
16 > Linux-only, make it good enough that a few hundred of you will emerge
17 > it and try it out. Then I'll change the license agreement so that
18 > next time you emerge the game you'll owe me $1million US. Since
19 > you all have ACCEPT_LICENSES="*" as the default, you'll all accept my
20 > new license, I'll take you all to court (after subpoenaing apache logs
21 > from all the mirrors so I know who you are, and subpoenaing your
22 > make.conf and make.globals to prove you accepted the license), and sue
23 > you for my license fee. If I can recover 1% of what you'll all owe
24 > me, I'll be happy enough.
25 >
26 > Okay, that's NOT REALLY my plan. I'm at least slightly ethical. (-:
27 > But it illustrates why you don't under any circumstances want
28 > ACCEPT_LICENSES="*", either as the default or as an option. Accepting
29 > a license has consequences, and those consequences can hurt you.* I'd
30 > recommend against letting the parser recognize a wildcard for licenses
31 > -- there's just too much danger for people who don't know any better
32 > to hurt themselves.
33 >
34 > That's my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it.
35
36 --
37 gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list