Re: #144984
Scripsit Colin Walters <walters@debian.org>
> What do people think about the status of #144984? My first thought was
> to agree with the submitter that it's non-free.
I agree, too. (Just for the record, the bug reads:
| The htp Copyright in contained in the Distribution section of file
| usr/share/doc/htp/ref/intro.htm says:
|
| No charge can be incurred for the redistribution of this utility beyond
| material costs.
|
| IMHO this violates #1 of the DFSG since it restricts sale of software. -
> On the other hand, the GPL says:
> You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
> you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
> which is generally interpeted to mean "you can charge whatever you want
> for distributing binaries", correct?
Yes. The GPL does not say anything about how large the fee must be.
"For the physical act of transferring a copy" restricts which general
schemes for computing the fee are allowed - for example, it is not
allowed to charge a fee whose size depends on what the recipient does
with the copy he received.
> Then again, the htp license does say "material costs", which narrows it
> down somewhat.
Quite. The most literal reading of that clause would be that it
forbids distribution for a profit. Thus it is non-free.
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Reply to:
- References:
- #144984
- From: Colin Walters <walters@debian.org>