Re: summary of software licenses in non-free

[Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>]

Craig Sanders wrote:
> > > ALMOST FREE
> > > -----------
> > 
> > While I appreciate your effort, non-free means that the package doesn't meet
> > the DFSG but can be distributed by Debian and our mirrors.  According to our
> > own guidelines the packages are not free, since they fail one or more clauses
> > of our guidelines.  Calling then "almost free" or "semi-free" is only sham.
> 
> sorry, but you are wrong.
> 
> most of the packages in that group *ARE* almost-free.  many of them even
> (almost half, at a guess) qualify as 'semi-free' by the FSF's overly strict
> definition.

If they fail our own guidelines for Free Software they are not free, hence
non-free.  Calling them semi-free suggest that they are not, which is wrong.
Calling them so is only sham and will contribute to confusion.

I also consider it critical that the FSF is calling non-free Software
semi-free but that's a different problem we cannot fix.  They also
release documentation that is non-free in our sense, sigh.

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it!  -- Mark Twain

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