launchd for Linux

Matthew Garrett mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org
Sat May 7 12:43:04 CDT 2005


On Sat, 2005-05-07 at 13:28 -0400, Eric Dunbar wrote:

> However, there's an interesting side to the problem. It seems the
> termination of the licence ONLY applies to the entity initiating legal
> action against Apple. Any code that has been distributed to others is
> protected. When you look at it from this point of view it is not
> unreasonable at all. Why should someone who's taking action against
> you be able to benefit from your work (regardless of whether or not
> you are in the right)?

Free software is about giving up some of your freedoms (such as the
right to sue people who make copies of your software) in return for
other benefits (such as getting other people to fix your bugs for you).
It's not unfair to refuse to give up some of those freedoms, but it
means that software isn't free.

As a somewhat stretched example - would you think that a license that
terminated if you sued the licensor for unfair dismissal was acceptable?

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org




More information about the sounder mailing list