Silly question: are usage restrictions covered by the OSD?

Rick Moen rick at linuxmafia.com
Fri Oct 17 22:12:09 UTC 2003


Quoting Chris F Clark (cfc at TheWorld.com):

> Perhaps a clause of the OSD should read that "the license should not
> discriminate against (or prohibit) any form of usage which is not
> already proscribed by copyright law".  That would be a very strong
> bound on what open source licenses can regulate.

A possibly silly question of my own:  If a particular form of usage is
already proscribed by copyright law, then wouldn't it be pretty much
pointless for a licence to "discriminate against or prohibit" it?  

If so, then the clause "the license should not discriminate against (or
prohibit) any form of usage" would seem functionally equivalent -- and
shorter.

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