From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-Id: <200006091900.PAA24772@small-gods.mit.edu>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 Binaries and Source for Free
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 09 Jun 2000 08:39:17 GMT."
             <uaegv1ewo.fsf@mail.ca.com>
Date: Fri,  9 Jun 2000 15:00:03 -0400
From: Greg Hudson <ghudson@MIT.EDU>
Topicbox-Message-UUID: b3d63894-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

> Heartfelt congratulations to the Plan-9 team for getting this out,
> just the way the world wanted (open source).

The world which wants open source can be a bunch of ungrateful
bastards, and in this case I'm one of them.  There are two things I,
and I suspect others, consider unacceptable about the new Plan 9
license:

	* Lucent has the right to come in and demand full
	  non-exclusive rights to any derivatives of Plan 9 which you
	  make and use--even if you don't distribute them.

	* You can't sue any contributor to the version of Plan 9 you
	  use, for any intellectual property reason whatsoever,
	  without destroying your copies of that version of Plan 9.
	  (I don't know how enforceable this clause is.)

Maybe some people think these things are okay, but from my point of
view, this is on the level of the APSL: technically open source, but
with a few poisonous clauses which will probably prevent it from
generating real interest.  And it's certainly not compatible with the
GPL.

These aren't issues of personal gain, incidentally.  I don't think I
would ever write a derivative of a work of free software and
intentionally keep it to myself, and I don't think I would ever sue
someone for intellectual property reasons.  But I think truly free
software shouldn't require people to give up these rights.

My apologies for raining on the parade.  And my deep apologizes if I
have misread the license and spread misinformation as a result.