Must publish vs. must supply

[Chris F Clark]

David Johnson wrote:
> Since the FSF rejects the APSL as being non-free, for the reasons that 
> it regulates how the software may be used internally via a 
> "must-publish" clause, then I'm pretty sure that you've got your terms 
> backwards.

I stand corrected.  I did not consider the additional license terms to
be pragmatic, but instead philosophical (thou shall not horde your
software) and thus seemingly more inline with free software, but as I
said, I was obviously mistaken.  

Clearly the FSF has decided that hording of software by corporations
(as long as they don't distribute it) should be one of their freedoms.
I find that a curious point, since as I understand it, the original
impetus for the movement was some code that one corporation provided
to Richard Stallman in source could not be used with another
corporation's machine.

To me hording is hording and if one creates a derived work of open
software (thus becoming an author), then one should be willing to
share the results with others.  If software wants to be free (as
someone once said), then it seems philosophically wrong to me to allow
software to be imprisoned by a select group of people, just because we
have decided they are "end" users.  However, I do not speak officially
for anyone in this regard, just myself.

> p.s. As to where the "official" differences between the FSF/Debian and 
> OSI are in regards to must-publish, I would say it depends heavily on 
> the individual queried. I can find any number of pairs of opposite 
> vocal viewpoints in both "communities".

Perhaps this is how I became mis-informed.

In the future I will try to refrain from categorizing this point of
view as more in line with the free softare or open source movement as
I cannot speak for either.

-Chris Clark
--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3