On Thu 08/Aug/2019 13:50:40 +0200 John Hasler wrote: > tomas writes: >> This is one of those cases: if you're using a piece of non-free >> software, you should know about it, and you should know which buy >> decision led to it (so you can take that into account at your next buy >> decision). > > There is also a practical reason to keep non-free for the benefit of > downstream distributions, CD makers, etc. Some of the licenses on stuff > in non-free make it ok for Debian to distribute the stuff but attempt to > place restrictions on what recipients can do with it. As long as you > stick to Main you need only read the DFSG to know what your > redistribution rights are. As soon as you go into Non-free you have to > study each license. > > This can even hit end-users. Non-free licenses can contain clauses > barring "commercial use" (without defining the term) and other similar > restrictions. This package is not in Debian, but I recall a "free" text > editor that was distributed on the Net back in the last century that > barred use by the South African police. It would have qualified for > inclusion in Non-free.
Perhaps we'd need an Almost-free, or Semantically-free category in order to distinguish blind redistributablity from actual devil-may-be-here stuff. I'm thinking GNU doc in particular... Best Ale
