Re: Freely distributable non-free packages
On Mon, Dec 07, 1998 at 10:15:05AM -0500, Avery Pennarun wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 07, 1998 at 11:33:41AM -0000, Milan Zamazal wrote:
>
> > I went through copyright files of non-free and non-US packages in frozen
> > to know what can be distributed on commercial CDs distributed for
> > profit.
>
> Congratulations, that must have been a lot of work.
>
> > - cannot be distributed freely
> > + can be distributed freely
> > *+ can be distributed freely, but there are some patent problems
> > @+ can be distributed only on freely redistributable CDs with other software
> > ?+ can be distributed freely and I do not understand why it is in non-free
>
> An interesting feature for non-free packages would be to have a special
> header indicating WHY they are non-free. For example:
>
> Package: ugly
> ...
> Non-Free: unmodified source-only no-fees patents crypto OTHER
>
> The package maintainer for each non-free package could insert this line, and
> CD distributors could use it to decide which packages they can distribute on
> a CD, depending on their level of paranoia / moral complacency.
>
> I don't know what exact restriction classes we should include. I'd say that
> a missing Non-Free header is like Non-Free: OTHER, that is, it has
> restrictions not covered by the known restriction classes, and no one should
> distribute it without checking the license first.
>
> It sure would be nice to be able to get "unzip" installed without
> downloading every time... it seems that at least 40% of popularity-contest
> victims use it, despite its no-modifications restriction.
Yes that would be a good idea, ...
there are some packages in non-free that are free in the sense that you can put
them on a CD, but not DFSG free because there are other restriction on them.
also this could be a nice idea to for making clasification of packages.
we could instead have a "Freeness" field, which contains information on the
kind of "free" the package is. this way we could later on make easy statistics
on the freeness on certain packages and so on.
in this field we could for example put a flag for : free but modifications only
in patch form, who is not as good as free, but still goes into main.
Friendly,
Sven LUTHER
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