Official policy statement: Debian's Relationship with FSF

[bruce@pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

DEBIAN's RELATIONSHIP WITH FSF

We want to be able to work with FSF, but we acknowledge that our goals
sometimes differ from those of FSF. Thus, we've set down some policy items 
for our relationship with FSF and others. We feel that these policies align
us with FSF's major goals, and at the same time give us the freedom to make
our own design decisions for the system.

1. The core of the Debian distribution must be entirely freely
   redistributable software. Non-essential accessories may have
   different licensing terms, but we of course encourage their authors
   to make them freely redistributable.

2. We assert that the GPL and LGPL are our preferred software licenses. Other
   licenses that make software freely redistributable, such as the BSD license,
   the "Artistic" license, and public-domain are acceptable to us.

3. We recognize and honor the contribution of BSD, FSF, independent
   hackers, businesses, schools, students, and people who write
   directly for Debian, and do not place a greater attribution on one
   group than any other.

4. Any interested party is welcome to participate in Debian as a peer
   with all other Debian contributors and repackagers. An overriding
   priority will not be placed on any one group's requirements.
   We invite FSF and any other organization to participate under these
   terms.

5. The name of this distribution is currently "Debian Linux". The name
   may change, but we don't plan on using the GNU name, simply because
   we have different management and slightly different goals from those
   of FSF's GNU project. We've been using the baby GNU logo, but we
   will cede that to FSF so that they can use it on their own
   repackaging of Debian. FSF is welcome to market their own version
   of Debian as "Official GNU Linux" or any name they choose.

6. We recommend that Linuxdoc-SGML be used for documentation.
   Linuxdoc-SGML is an markup language that generates texinfo, groff,
   and HTML. It generates documentation in a format that is compatible
   with both Debian's and FSF's requirements. We continue to accept any
   machine-readable documentation format that can be rendered using free
   software tools.
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