[Nix-dev] Packaging free software that costs money

[joachifm at fastmail.fm]

On Wed, Jul 6, 2016, at 06:48 PM, Profpatsch wrote:
> On 16-07-06 09:50am, Kevin Cox wrote:
> > IIUC you can't "really require" money for a GPL program. You can charge
> > for the distribution or for binaries or whatever you like, but nothing
> > is stopping others from building and distributing the program for no
> > charge (or even taking the money themselves) this is part of the freedom
> > offered by the license.
> 
> I’m not sure how that fares legally (compared to proprietary licenses),
> but in a day-to-day environment, this holds true for *every* digital
> file.
> 
> It is a basic property.
> 
> If you don’t think so, I point you to $FILE_SHARING_WEBSITE of your
> choice.

That patterns of bytes are easily disseminated seems impertinent to me.
An unlicensed distributor of proprietary software can be *forced* to
stop their activity and also be made to pay for any damages that the
copyright holder is able to prove. A libre software
vendor can ask for payment but they have no recourse against
re-distributors. I believe this is what Kevin Cox is referring to.

I agree with Jookia that the policy proposed in this thread is
inappropriate for Nixpkgs. I think a case could be made for adding
standard meta attributes containing information about where to go to
pay/donate, but only if absent built-in policies.