Re: Debian archive requirements

[John Lines <john@paladin.demon.co.uk>]

Wichert Akkerman <wichert@liacs.nl> wrote:
> Previously John Lines wrote:
> > Main, Non-free and contrib:
> > This is largely aimed at CD creators, and people using Debian in a busine=
> ss
> > who can use main and contrib without worries about licences, but should e=
> xamine
> > everything in non-free on its individual merits. (Many things in non-free
> > are free to many people, but are in there because they are not free to
> > everyone)
> 
> I really hope you don't believe this..
> 
> Wichert.
> 

I should probably have worded it differently - non free is a complex section
to describe because it is a catch all for everything for which there is a
special licence requirement - All packages in non-free must have a licence
which says that it can be freely distributed - otherwise we could not do so,
but - for example Majordomo says:

                     You may install Majordomo at your site and run
                     mailing lists for other using it, and charge for
                     that service.
      
                     You may install Majordomo at other sites, and
                     charge for your time to install, configure,
                     customize, and manage it.
      
                     You may charge for enhancements you've made to
                     the Majordomo software, subject to the distribution
                     restrictions listed below.
  
                 You may not charge for the Majordomo software
                 itself.
 
                 A commercial license will be required in all other cases.

The intent of the licence is to make it free (in both senses) except for
the specific case of people building a business around a modified version of
Majordomo, who want to keep their modifications to themselves. The original
authors thought that if someone was to do this they would like a cut.

Other programs are in non-free because they may only be used (according to
their licence) by Licenced Radio Amateurs - the fact that they are only of
interest to Radio Amateurs is not the point - they must go into non-free.

There is a spectrum of freeness (as described in http://www.debian.org/into/free)
ranging from putting something in the public domain - where the author gives
away all their rights - you can claim their work as yours etc - through the
various DFSG free licences - to licences which allow free distribution, but
disallow commercial use - to shareware licences - and on to licences which
do not allow redistibution at all (which can not appear in Debian at all)

There are licences which attempt to be more aggressively free than GPL by
stating that they may not be distributed on the same CD as commercial software,
which paradoxically puts them into non-free.

Some licences are used by authors to make a point - for example those which
are DFSG free, except that they may not be used by (the authors choice of)
	Government agencies of named oppressive regimes
	Drug dealers
	The CIA
	etc.


Getting back to archive requirements - the licensing issues currently lump
together restrictions on distribution and restrictions on end use. Both
currently go into non-free.

People who are interested in mirroring the archive, or putting it onto CD are
interested in the permissions to distribute.

End users are interested in the restrictions on use.

Also currently in non-free we have packages where the licence from the author
is DFSG free, but where the software uses a patented algorithm.
If I operate in a country which does not recognise the validity of software
patents then, for me, such packages are genuinely free software, and they
will become free everywhere when their patents expire.

We use a different section of the archive (non-US) for software whose
distribution is controlled by one particular government.
There have been suggestions of various other similar sections relating to
software which can not be distributed into other countries.
We should also consider the viewpoint of the developer here - how much should
developers need to know about export regulations in every country in the world?

In summary:

The freeness of a package is determined by a combination of
 1)	The licence from the original author
 2)	Patent condiderations
 3)	Government export regulations
The applicability of all of these may depend on where the user, or distributor,
are located, and potentially they may all vary with time as well.

	John Lines