scripsit Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Thanasis Kinias <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > I've been in communication with upstream, and he says that the only > > thing he intends to prohibit is someone charging money for his free > > program > > Like, say, putting the program on a storage medium and charging people > for it? Or charging money to install the program? Or charging money to > include it as part of a service?
(1) I believe all these are fine. What's not fine with upstream is someone saying `want a copy of this package? send me $20 by Paypal and I'll let you download a single copy -- but you can't use it on more than one machine'. He doesn't mind the software being part of a business that makes money, but doesn't want it being made (what he sees as) non-free. It's part of the general idea of `do what you will with it, but don't make it less free than you found it'. > Many people do those things and more with Debian or parts of it, and > we want that to continue. Of course. > > (or charging money for a simple dump of the output of his free > > program; he specifically says he has no objection otherwise to its > > use in the course of commercial or any other activity. > > That's already too much. Free software includes the freedom to charge > money for it. Please see (1) above. I agree that upstream's restrictions do not match with GPL, for example, much less BSDish licensing... but I'm not sure they make it DFSG-unfree. > > I _think_ that is good enough to move the program out of non-free, > > as I can't see what part of DFSG is being violated. The only > > question I had was about `No Discrimination Against Fields of > > Endeavor', but upstream assures he that is not the intent. > > That's a contradiction. "Charge money for the software" *is* a field > of endeavour, that in no way restricts the freedom of the software. Is it? I understood the Fields of Endeavo(u)r clause differently, based on the examples given -- viz., commerce and genetics. I.e., Free software can't restrict what type of work you use it in. > To deny the recipient the freedom to charge money is to make the > software non-free. Can we be more specific on this? I ask that because -- as I understand it -- the crucial distinction is between (i) making a business out of using free software, such as charging for CDs, charging for services like installation, etc., and (ii) charging for the _software itself_. Upstream specifically agreed that (this being astrology software) a professional astrologer using the software as part of the service for which he charged money is OK. Charging for the software itself or its direct output (like redirecting STDOUT to a file and charging for the file) is what he considers putting further restrictions that violate his concept of keeping his work free. > > Upstream can't relicense under GPL, for example, because he has > > accepted code from other contributors under the existing terms. > > That's always an unfortunate situation, to be sure. It's not > impossible, though, as demonstrated by the relicensing that occurred > with Linux (from an early non-free license to GPLv2). Or he could > attempt to contact those people and get their permission to change the > license terms on a future release. Or I may be able to remove the code that's under other people's copyright if I could get upstream to agree to a relicensing of his own code. AFAICT what's under others' copyright is some specific functions which may be removable or replaceable. -- Thanasis Kinias Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, and Instructor, Professional Enhancement Programs Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A. . Je ne viens d'aucun pays, d'aucune cité, d'aucune tribu. Je suis fils de la route, ma patrie est caravane, et ma vie la plus inattendue des traversées. -- Amin Maalouf, _Léon l'Africain_ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
