Re: Keeping non-free separate
> Bruce Perens:
> > No, I verified that they were not free, but that their licenses allowed me
> > to put them on a CD and sell them.
>
> Sorry to bother you again, but I thought non-free was precisely for
> packages which may not be sold on CDs. Now I am confused. Please
> explain (at least give examples of such packages) - thanks!
You managed to do that yourself... PGP is used to sign the changes
file (I believe), but because of the various patent, export, and
commercial use restrictions, the US version cannot be exported outside
of the US (or used commercially) and the International version can't be
used in the US. In my opinion, and in Bruce's opinion, this means that
PGP cannot truely be considered free software, despite the wishes of
it's authors. However, it is perfectly fine to include on a CD that
never crosses the US border.
The license for Alladin Ghostscript (in the non-free directory) does
not allow certain forms of distribution (including bundling Ghostscript
on a CD-ROM with commercial software). This restriction would prevent
a commercial software producer from bundling Debian including Alladin
Ghostscript with his commercial product. This is contrary to the level
of "free-ness" we want in this distribution, so Alladin Ghostscript is
therefore non-free. However, the license explicitly allows
distribution for profit on CD-ROMs containing only freely distributable
software.
Pine requires explicit permission for redistribution by for-profit
organisations, which means that Bruce can put it on his CD-ROMs,
Software in the Public Interest (Debian) can put it on their CD-ROMs,
but Yggdrisil or SSC (Linux Journal) can't. That's too unfree to not
be in non-free.
XV is shareware, and can't be bundled with "any product". While XV is
fairly liberal with its copying policy, it is non-free. I believe that
Bruce could bundle it on his CD, but I could be wrong. XV also
contains code for LZW compression (to support GIF), and that is
potentially effected by patent restrictions.
Zip isn't allowed for commercial distribution (but bundling with
commercial software is OK, with restrictions), and it is unclear if
modification and subsequent redistribution is allowed. As long as due
care was taken, it could be shipped on CD-ROM.
Please note that this covers the majority of the "optional" non-free
packages. I don't have many of the "Extra" non-free packages
installed, so I don't have the copyright notices handy.
--
Buddha Buck bmbuck@acsu.buffalo.edu
"Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our
liberty depends upon the chaos and cacaphony of the unfettered speech
the First Amendment protects." -- A.L.A. v. U.S. Dept. of Justice
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