Keeping track of DSFG-free and non-free licenses
I notice our free-software page, the one that points to the DSFG text
(http://www.debian.org/intro/free), refers to a couple of sample free
licenses (GPL, BSD et al).
I think it would be a useful resource if this page would also refer to
examples of licenses that Debian considers DSFG-nonfree (e.g. GFSDL, XFree86
1.1, etc), with a brief summary of why they do not meet our guidelines.
My motivation for asking for this is that my Xprint upstream author prefers
ksh93 to bash, and would prefer it if we were to use it. Looking into
ksh93, AT&T has now released it as open-source, but the licence
(http://www.research.att.com/sw/license/ast-open.html) has enough if's and
but's that it is not obvious to me whether or not it is DSFG-free.
After debian-legal goes to all the trouble of determining whether some
licence is free or not, it would be useful for their decision to be
displayed, so others can easily see the decision later, without having to
waste time searching through the mailing list. It could perhaps also serve
as a kind of "shame file", encouraging upstream authors to consider changing
their program to a DSFG-free licence.
Drew
dparsons@debian.org
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