Desert island test (was: Questions about liblouis)

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> writes:

> johnhalton@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> >This fails the "desert island test", and so the package is non-free.
>
> The "desert island test" is just something which was invented a few
> years ago by some debian-legal@ posters

In other words, the "desert island test" is a way of expressing a
commonly-encountered freeness problem with license terms, in a way
that doesn't require the entire thing spelled out every time.

It seems quite appropriate for it to be referenced here, since the OP
is asking the opinion of debian-legal.

> and is not part of the DFSG.

If reading the DFSG was all that was required to determine the
freeness of a work, no-one would need to discuss anything on
debian-legal. As it happens, human language is imprecise, so
interpretation and discussion is needed.

-- 
 \         “All television is educational television. The question is: |
  `\                           what is it teaching?” —Nicholas Johnson |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney