Debian, Liberaj Programaroj kaj permesiloj

Debian, Free Software and licences

La DFSG-oj aplikas al programaro, sed plej ofte programaro estas kovrita kun unu kopirajta permesilo. Tiel, rigardi al aliaj programaroj uzantaj saman permesilon, povas esti tre informita por decidi se programaro sekvas la DFSG (kaj povas aligxi al debian/main distribuaĵo).

The DFSG apply to software, but usually software is covered by one copyright licence. So, looking at other software which uses the same licence can be very informative in deciding whether software follows the DFSG (and could go in the main debian distribution).

This page is an attempt to gather references and examples, categorised by licence. It assumes your aim is to package software under that licence for inclusion in debian main. There should be references to the licence, some discussions and my advice. Please remember my disclaimer when considering my advice. Also, discussions don't appear here quickly. They'll appear first in my other pages like the dlpl ones.

Many of the discussions are from the debian-legal mailing list. Henning Makholm posted an explanation for authors of works in debian (upstream developers). I've recently written an introduction to how I think debian-legal works and collected some examples.

If you have no clue about copyright, please start with a brief intro rather than relying on "common understanding". Bluntly, my experience suggests that most people (including myself) can't tell a copyright from a pothole without help. If you would like to learn more, try a crash course from d-l contributor Arnoud Engelfret.

If you think you have found a licence breach, please try FTF: Reporting and fixing license violations from FSFEurope for a HOWTO guide on what information to include (and what to omit) when reporting a bug.

Affero General Public License
Apple Public Source License 2.0
BitTorrent Open Source License 1.0
Computer Associates Trusted Open Source License
Creative Commons 2.0
d-fsl, the German Free Software Licence
Elm Mail System General Public License
Free Documentation License
GNU General Public License
Java Research License
Latex Project Public License
Maia Mailguard License
Mozilla Firefox artwork and trademark licences
Portaudio
Solaris 10 Common Development and Distribution License

3 Feb 2009, MJR