Bug#834756: ITP: powershell -- scripting language interpreter built on .NET
Hi,
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016, Luke W Faraone wrote:
> Microsoft recently released PowerShell as free software, and this month
> announced support for Linux platforms.
>
> From a parausal of the source code, it appears to be suitable for
> inclusion in Debian.
I started looking at it but it's not clear that it's suitable for
Debian main. I found this in particular:
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/master/license_thirdparty_proprietary.txt#L456
So while powershell itself is MIT licensed it also includes other
third party software, some of which is even announced to be proprietary.
The file starts with:
| IMPORTANT NOTICE: THE SOFTWARE ALSO CONTAINS THIRD PARTY AND OTHER
| PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE THAT ARE GOVERNED BY SEPARATE LICENSE TERMS
And the lines that I pointed out above include some restrictions
which probably fall short of our "No Discrimination Against Fields of
Endeavor" rule.
| You may not [...] include Distributable Code in malicious, deceptive or
| unlawful programs; or
And even more frightening:
| You may not [...] publish the software for others to copy; [...]
| use the software for commercial software hosting services.
In some other parts (Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure) we only have the
right to use, not to modify, etc.
So I think that powershell can only be packaged for non-free. Unless
it can be split into a free part with some non-free bits that can be
packaged separately. But even if that is possible, it will likely be
a significant amount of work and a pain to maintain over time.
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer
Support Debian LTS: https://www.freexian.com/services/debian-lts.html
Learn to master Debian: https://debian-handbook.info/get/
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