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



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.

~Evan

-- 
Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org>
The Debian Project (http://www.debian.org/)

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