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Re: What is the most restrictive DFSG approved "Commercialism prohibited"



Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org> writes:

> On Wed, 2006-22-11 at 00:06 +0200, Jari Aalto wrote:
> > I need to talk to upstrem that wants to prohibit commercial use of the
> > software. What Licence I should suggest to him?
> > 
> > The current hand written license permits the software to be used in
> > GPL programs -- except the ssoftware cannot be used for commercial
> > purposes.
> 
> Prohibiting commercial use is incompatible with the DFSG.
> 
>         6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor 
>         
>         The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
>         program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not
>         restrict the program from being used in a business, or from
>         being used for genetic research.
> 
> Typically people who are opposed to commercial use are really opposed to
> commercial _exploitation_. They don't want their work to be used
> unfairly or selfishly. A copyleft license like the GPL can prevent some
> of the more egregious misuses of a piece of software, but not all.

Ok, so what is the most "restrictive" license that I might be able to
discuss with the upstream. I mean -- in the sense, that when
software would use that license, it would be hard to use the software for
commercial purposes / exploited.

Is the winner Good Old (tm) GPL; of all the choices? 

What specific arguments would you suggest I could while talking with
the upstream to persuade him to make the move to another license?

Jari



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