RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 25, 2005 23:12 UTC (Sun) by dark (subscriber, #8483)
In reply to: RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet) by job
Parent article: RMS: The GNU GPL Is Here to Stay (O'ReillyNet)

I think there is some basis for being concerned about that. The Affero GPL is a variant of the GPL which has a downloadable-source clause. The FSF was involved in drafting it, and one of the goals was to see how such a clause would work in practice. So it's a precedent to consider, and it does single out HTTP as the protocol to use.

That doesn't mean the GPLv3 will automatically do the same thing, but we should at least talk about it. And we can't just ignore the protocol either. I work with services for mobile phones, where the transport protocol might be SMS -- 140 bytes per packet, costing several cents and several seconds to send a packet. Offering source code over that is not reasonable.

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