Are debian/ubuntu distributions commercial applications from a legal point of view?

2009-11-17 Thread Laszlo Lebrun
Do you know about any jurisprudence about that question?

Thank you
Laszlo 


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Re: Are debian/ubuntu distributions commercial applications from a legal point of view?

2009-11-17 Thread MJ Ray
Laszlo Lebrun wrote:
 Do you know about any jurisprudence about that question?

I'm pretty sure that commercial applications in legal use means
something different to commercial software applications, so I'd say
that the act of distribution itself is sometimes a commercial
application.

I'm not aware of a particularly clear definition of commercial
application in law but I'm no lawyer.

One definition from Football Association Premier League Ltd  Ors v QC
Leisure  Ors [2008] EWHC 1411 (Ch) seems to be for the purposes of
trade and [...] for commercial use compared with private, which is
for his and his family's personal use and only at his home or
workplace.

However, note that the debian free software guidelines are broken
by software which limits commercial applications, so they should not
be part of the distribution. http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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Re: Are debian/ubuntu distributions commercial applications from a legal point of view?

2009-11-17 Thread Andrew M.A. Cater
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 08:48:43PM +, MJ Ray wrote:
 Laszlo Lebrun wrote:
  Do you know about any jurisprudence about that question?
 

According to David A. Wheeler, the US Department of Defense has 
recognised FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) as being on the 
same basis as Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) in 
contracts for purchasing and use of software.

All best,

AndyC


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