[Nix-dev] Re: Creating a BIOLOGY section

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

pjotr2008 at thebird.nl (Pjotr Prins) writes:

> On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 02:06:25PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

>> If the license scheme is along the lines of "gratis for non-commercial
>> use", then it's non-free software per [0] (it violates Freedoms 0 and 2)
>> and it would be better to use the string "non-free" as the `license'
>> attribute IMO.
>
> well, 'academic use' is not the same as 'non-free' - the latter more
> referring to private use.

No, "non-free" has nothing to do with private use, it just means that
it's not "free" in the sense of the referred FSF definition.

Of course, not everybody agrees on that definition of "free software",
but it's reasonable to say that a large subset of the "free software"
community, including advocates of non-copyleft licenses such as BSD
license derivatives, recognize these four freedoms as being essential.

> I would like a distinction - as the former is less likely to infringe
> on package management systems. How about 'non-free' and
> 'academic-free' or 'academic license'?

Again, I can only speak for myself, but that distinction seems
misleading to me.  It looks like purposefully fuzzy commercial jargon.

Thanks,
Ludovic.