[Fwd: Wikipidia - Goodbye Red Hat and Fedora]

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 1:31 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> So there is a penalty for violating the restriction.  Can you still claim
> there is no restriction?

I will no longer make you new copies of Linux CDs (or work on your bug
reports) if you allow your dog to dig up my tulip bed.

Have I placed a restriction on the free software that I've previously
given you?  Why would the situation change if I warned you about this
reality in advance?

On way of looking at free software licenses is:  Free software
licenses assure for the users of the software certain specific rights
with the FSF believes are both necessary and sufficient for software
to be considered free software.  Additional powers, like the ability
to get a software developer to listen to your bug reports, or a get
distributor to print more disks for you, are external to those rights.
These things are external to the license agreement, an necessarily so
since no one would accept a license which make them unbounded slaves
to all downstream recipients.


... such a stupid thread ...