My solution (was: My (less-then-important) personal position)
#include <hallo.h>
Craig Sanders wrote on Sat Jun 17, 2000 um 11:04:07AM:
> (as an example, i'm often tempted when i write software to add a clause
> to the license which prohibits use by spammers...which i think is a
> perfectly acceptable thing to do. however, i don't do it *because* i
> know that would make it non-free. it would be a good clause, serving a
> noble purpose, but it would still make the software non-free. that's
> my choice. other people make different choices for their software and
> decide, for instance, that they don't want anyone profiting from their
> work or using their work in particular ways. that's definitely non-free
> but not necessarily evil.)
I think, that's exactly the point the most people are confused about.
IMHO Debian should not lose the whole non-free section, only parts of it
with extremely limited license agreements. I propose to create a rating
system:
First, some packages which very small limitation like in the example
above may still distributed on Debian CDs. Packages in main/contrib
should be independent from the state of packages in this (let's call it
"restricted") section, so if some of the restricted-packages contain
RC-bugs, this packages and all restricted-packages depending on it would
be removed. APT would warn the user and show the special parts of the
license which are not compatible with DSFG. The packages has to be
maintained by registered developers.
The second section ("limited-free") is meant to stay on the net or be
distributed on CD media, depending on distributors will. This would
contain packages with licenceses that allow to redistributed them on CDs
without control of the author, still gratis available software but with
serious limitations in the license. This section is not for shareware or
advertisement/demo products. The packages has to be maintained by
registered developers.
The thirth section ("commercial") is like the second, but the packages
may contain shareware products. The packages may become especial tags
like in section four.
The 4th section ("third-party") is for the rest. The packages has not
to be maintained by registred developers and should be stored somewhere
on the net. A catalogisation system would provides method to get this
software together. The licenses are different and should be always
presented before the installation. The packages in this section should
become additional description tags to help the server maintainers to
look for legality issues, eg. because of patent-problems or violent
content. But everybody should not rely on this tags if the source is
unknown.
So, this is how I would solve the problem, and it would satisfy the most
people here, I hope.
Eduard.
--
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Eduard Bloch <eb@zombie.inka.de>; HP: http://eduard.bloch.com/edecosi
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