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Re: Canonical list of DFSG-free licenses?



On 2004-11-06 14:30:09 +0000 Sebastian Feltel <sebastian@feltel.de> wrote:

Juhapekka Tolvanen schrieb am 06.11.2004 09:10:
But what about Debian-project? Why we do not have a WWW-page telling
official stance of Debian-project to different licenses? Or Am I missing
something?

The DFSG apply to software, not licences. It is possible to apply a licence from the FSF list in a stupid way or with a stupid addition and create non-free software. I strongly believe it's better to look at particular pieces of software than make abstract statements which will be thrown back at debian when it notices the first stupid licensing.

I think http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ is what you are looking for. It is currently not as useful as it could be but it is a goot starting point.

There have been two (three?) summary attempts and none have worked particularly well IMO. That's one of them. Admittedly, they've not been helped by certain shock blogs and red-top media.

Currently, I think that we need to:
1. catalogue which licences are currently used in the debian archive, which should tell licences usual for free software, other distributable software and ones which really need careful examination; 2. catalogue discussions on debian-legal, which contain a wealth of usually-informed thoughts about licences.

If anyone has labour-saving ways to do these, please explain them and I'll stop putting off work so much and help.

--
MJR/slef    My Opinion Only and not of any group I know
 Creative copyleft computing - http://www.ttllp.co.uk/
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