On Tuesday, September 9, 2025 1:29:12 AM Mountain Standard Time Andrea Pappacoda wrote: > > The question that I'm left with is- does the non-commercial mandate of > > these images destroy DFSG-freeness of the package they're included in? > > Personally, I don't think it passes the desert island test, but I also > > suspect that level of scrutiny (clearly) violates their original > > intent. > > I have another idea instead. Assuming that by "non-commercial" they > meant to prohibit usage in non-free projects, but allow usage in > DFSG-free projects, this clause does not pose any additional restriction > on melonDS. This is because melonDS is GPL, and the GPL imposes that the > work always stays GPL - hence free. So the case where these > illustrations, included in melonDS, are used inside a larger > non-open-source project does not ever happen. > > I know I'm probably stretching it a bit too much here, but I'm just > curious to hear your (and Dimensions') opinion on this. Just to be clear. 1. To be DFSG-free, a license must allow commercial use. "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.” https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines 2. The GPL requires allowing commercial use. Not only may GPL software be used by a commercial entity, but GPL software (or any fork thereof) may be sold for a price (as long as the source code is available in accordance with the GPL). https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCommercially https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NoMilitary I think that most of the people in this discussion understand both of these points, but I thought I would make them explicit in case either of these are not clear to someone. -- Soren Stoutner soren@debian.org
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