Re: licenses revisited

["Chahine M. Hamila" <HALCON11 at terra dot es>]

Mohammed Elzubeir a *crit :

> On Fri, Feb 01, 2002 at 11:57:18PM +0100, Chahine M. Hamila wrote:
>
> I think there is a major misunderstanding about what is a license,
> and what is law. Restricting some group or otherwise in a license
> is contradictory to what is 'Open'. I don't like it. As much as I
> despise .il or whatever, it is NOT what 'openness' means.

Well, saying "you have to respect U.S. law" in your license does in fact discriminate.
It's as if saying, I won't forbid .il, but you will have to respect Syrian (or the AL's
for that matter) export restrictions.

> Now, in regard to MPL, it is not part of the licese, but an additional
> provision of restrictions of US Laws. It would NOT have been listed
> under the OSI approved licenses if those restrictions were an actual
> part of the license. There is a major difference in that.

It talks about the US laws.

> Also, That does not apply to Nadim (he is a US citizen last I
> checked).

Depends, if Nadim still holds his Iraqi citizenship. Or if he is in relation with any
Iraqi institution, organisation, enterprise, etc... Or if he visits Iraq. The provision
are there to read, try downloading something from Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, whatever...

> In my case, yes.. I am, by law, not allowed to download/use any
> 128-bit encryption software developed in the US. It is not a law
> I have any intentions of ever respecting. But again, it is NOT
> a part of the license.

Not just encryptions, no. It's simply about using software. Again, you should take a
look at how nasty it can get if you try to download from one of these big cos.

> Reading the Debian Social contract and other definitions of what
> is 'Open Source'.. that 'no discrimination' clause is always
> there.. and it seems to me that we would be contradicting ourselves
> if we accept for a licence to have that within it.

We are not. We are willing to give anything free to the world according to our own
definitions. And we're not talking here about 'discrimination against persons or a
group of persons' in the sense of 'don't give this to
Jews/Asians/Blacks/Scandinavian-looking muchachas/whoever', we are talking about a
political entity. In any case, it is OUR decision, and no one but us will decide what
is good for us. That might include a 'suicide ourselves' license if we see it fit (not
that I believe the HPL is;)).

> As Nadim has
> suggested, I am more in favor of having this as an additional
> out-of-the license type of thing. I am sure Haydar would not
> terribly disagree ;)

As I said, I have nothing against it... as long as Haydar doesn't feel pressured. IOW,
we can tell him it could be better that way, but that in any case, it will not be a
criteria for acceptance/refusal, so if he wants to put that provision, we have no issue
with it.

Well, I don't see what I can add... so there, I think what has been said was...

Salaam