[Right, so I'm with Don; concrete examples here help]
This is not the opinion of any organization I'm in, this is purely my
reading.
General notes I'm going to leave here because folks who think this way
can skip it and see my reading
- DFSG freenes is applied to *licenses*. Notice everything in the DFSG
starts with 'the license'. Software freeness is kinda a silly
concept, and we should rather think about User freeness. Licenses
that define redistribution protect users, not software. We therefore
regulate and talk about licenses, not software (directly)
- DFSG tests are to be applied to licenses, not software.
On Tue, Mar 24, 2015 at 07:23:32PM +0100, Paul van der Vlis wrote:
> Op 24-03-15 om 18:38 schreef Paul R. Tagliamonte:
> > Unless it allows modification and redistribution of this (and we do so),
> > its not dfsg free.
>
> Modefication and redistributing is allowed because it's pure AGPL v.3.
If it's pure AGPL; it's a DFSG free work. As far as I'm concerened, this
is the end of the story. What we do and do not patch, well, that's up to
the maintainer.
It's worth verifying that the license is in fact pure AGPL, and not
'freemium' or 'open core'.
> But the creator would not like it when the 5-user restriction would be
> removed and then redistributed by Debian, I expect.
This is partially a troll, but mostly to drive home a point.
Technically speaking, I don't have a problem with leaving it in.
The big objection that I'm going to feel here is that it restricts
use of the software -- but this is *not* present in the license,
rather, it's implemented in code, in a work that is DFSG free, and
may be patched out without issue.
I don't think a *feature* that's part of a DFSG free work that
infringes on user freedom inherently causes a DFSG freeness issue.
I do, however, strongly believe that this messes with the spirit of the
license, and I wish the author would find an alternate monetization
technique, rather than trying to *create* a power dynamic that free
software intends to solve (namely; subjecting users to a single central
entity to their rules by denying them freedom)
> ( When some organizations with less money would do that themselves, it
> would not be a problem. )
>
> Is this the way Debian handles programs what are not free as in beer?
We have no mechanism to charge users for programs. Some may say this is
a feature, others might claim it's a failure.
I do, however, believe that some of this is not entirely about DFSG
freenes, but the spirit of what we're doing in Debian - namely, how is
this work adding to liberated users.
> With regards,
> Paul van der Vlis.
Toodles,
Paul
--
.''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org> | Proud Debian Developer
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`. `'` http://people.debian.org/~paultag
`- http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt
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