license submission: qmail

[Brian Behlendorf]

On 7 Jun 2001, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> > Thus, I submit that either qmail's license be approved as an
> > OSD-conformant license, or OSI consider whether clause #4 needs, er,
> > "clarification".  It's hard to argue that neither is the case.
>
> So you are saying that the question here is what limitations clause #4
> permits on this sentence: ``The license must explicitly permit
> distribution of software built from modified source code.''  After
> all, DJB requires his approval for any such distribution.

Nope, read more closely at http://cr.yp.to/qmail/dist.html:

  Exception: You are permitted to distribute a precompiled var-qmail
  package if [...list of conditions...]

The OSD doesn't state that there could be no conditions.

> The intent
> of clause #4 is presumably that permission beyond adherence to the
> license itself is not required, and so DJB's license would not adhere.

I think that page describes sufficiently how to create binaries of
derivative works; it just doesn't allow source code releases of those
derivative works, except as pristine source + patches.  Kinda perverse
that the OSD has this preferential treatment for binaries over source
releases, IMHO...

Like I did a few months ago with the can-copyrights-enforce-standards
question, I'm exploring the edge cases of the OSD with the intent of
either finding models that accomplish goals that others not currently in
the open source community have (to bring them in) or to force us to ask
ourselves what "Open Source" really means, and whether the OSD matches
that concept.  I'm not trying to be an ass about this, seriously.  I just
see licenses like Darren Reed's and DJB's, and see some healthy debate
outside of this list and OSI as to whether such terms are "Open Source" or
not, and see the opportunity for clarification.

	Brian