[Freepats] Re: GPL for sound samples

[Mark Constable]

On Saturday 22 April 2006 06:34, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
> I've just started some conversations to share my concerns about GPL
> applied to music, but GPL+exception is still the "official" for
> Freepats AFAIK.

Yes, as far as "official", in quotes, can be. Until something
better comes along. Here are some thoughts from the Debian folks.
Passing their DFSG is a must for any acceptable freepats license.

   From: http://people.debian.org/~bap/dfsg-faq.html

Q: How can I tell if a license is a free software license, by
   Debian's standards?

A: The process involves human judgement. The DFSG is an attempt
   to articulate our criteria. But the DFSG is not a contract.
   This means that if you think you've found a loophole in the
   DFSG then you don't quite understand how this works. The DFSG
   is a potentially imperfect attempt to express what free software
   means to Debian. It is not something whose letter we argue about.
   It is not a law. Rather, it is a set of guidelines. That said,
   the DFSG is a good start. You might also consider a few thought
   experiments which we often apply. But do keep in mind that
   passing some set of tests is not all there is to freeness.
   These tests are not the final word either: some other tricky
   bit of nonfreeness might be invented which is not covered by
   any of our current tests, or something might fail a test as it
   is currently worded but still be determined to be free software.

   *TheDesert Island test*

Imagine a castaway on a desert island with a solar-powered computer. This would make it impossible to fulfill any requirement to make changes publicly available or to send patches to some particular place. This holds even if such requirements are only upon request, as the castaway might be able to receive messages but be unable to send them. To be free, software must be modifiable by this unfortunate castaway, who must also be able to legally share modifications with friends on the island.

   *The Dissident test*

Consider a dissident in a totalitarian state who wishes to share a modified bit of software with fellow dissidents, but does not wish to reveal the identity of the modifier, or directly reveal the modifications themselves, or even possession of the program, to the government. Any requirement for sending source modifications to anyone other than the recipient of the modified binary---in fact any forced distribution at all, beyond giving source to those who receive a copy of the binary---would put the dissident in danger. For Debian to consider software free it must not require any such excess distribution.

   *The Tentacles of Evil test*
 
Imagine that the author is hired by a large evil corporation and, now in their thrall, attempts to do the worst to the users of the program: to make their lives miserable, to make them stop using the program, to expose them to legal liability, to make the program non-free, to discover their secrets, etc. The same can happen to a corporation bought out by a larger corporation bent on destroying free software in order to maintain its monopoly and extend its evil empire. The license cannot allow even the author to take away the required freedoms!

FWIW

--markc