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List:       freedos-dev
Subject:    Re: Software Free of Charge for Personal use and FreeDOS
From:       Damian Gryski <dgryski () uwaterloo ! ca>
Date:       2000-01-28 23:30:45
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On Fri, Jan 28, 2000 at 03:06:21PM -0800, Pedro Ramilo wrote:
> I don't fully agree with the distribution of "free of charge software for
> non-comercial use" with FreeDOS, as it will some day get popular and people
> other than programmers (mopstly) will not be only ones to use it, so people may
> be easilly encouraged into violating that kind of agrements. But on the other
> hand, I also belive that access to those apps should be provided for anyone who
> is interested and matches the requisites.

   The Debian GNU/Linux distribution has 3 sections: main, contrib,
   and non-free.  Only `main' is officially part of Debian -- the other
   two are not.

   `main' only includes all Free (as in speech) software.

   `contrib' includes all software which is Free, but depends on
   non-free software to be of any use. (For example, Slash, the code
   behind slashdot.org is in contrib (or will be) because while slash
   itself is under GPL, it depends on MySQL, which is non-free.  There is
   talk of porting Slash to run under PostgreSQL, which is Free).

   `non-free' contains software which is non-free, but Debian can
   distribute it.  In some cases (pine and qmail come to mind), since
   Debian can not distribute modified binaries, they distribute source
   code + patches, and the install script compiles the package.

   I think that this is a good distinction.  Not only does it allow
   Debian to remain Free, but users must make a choice to install
   non-free software on their systems.  Debian even includes `vrms'
   (a Virtual Richard M Stallman) which tells you how many non-free
   software packages you have installed.

   Since Debian is commited to providing a Free (as in speech) OS, it
   is vital that they make the distinction between free and non-free
   software.  Red Hat has no such credo, and thus includes non-free
   software in their distribution.  For FreeDOS, we must decide where
   our priorities lie, and assemble the packages accordingly.

   Damian


-- 
Damian Gryski ==> dgryski@uwaterloo.ca | Linux, the choice of a GNU generation
512 pt Hacker Test score = 37%         | 500 pt Nerd Test score = 56%
           geek / linux zealot / coder / juggler / sysadmin

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