Free World Licence.

[J.H.M. Dassen (Ray)]

On Mon, Oct 18, 1999 at 16:39:35 +0930, Ross N. Williams wrote:
> I have created a new free software licence on which I would appreciate
> some feedback. The licence is called the "Free World Licence" and its
> main feature is that it allows the software to be used on free platforms
> only (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, GNU/HURD etc - the "Free World").

This is not a DFSG-free/Open Source license. It is at odds with clauses 9
and 8 and possibly 5 and 6.

:9.License Must Not Contaminate Other Software 
:
:The license must not place restrictions on other software that is
:distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must
:not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be
:free software.

>    * Free software advocates dont/won't use commercial platforms, so
>      as far as they are concerned, the platform-restriction might
>      as well say that the software can't be used on the planet
>      Zarquon.

Well, the Zarquonese qualify as a group, so that would still be at odds with
clause 5.

Seriously though, I know there are lots of people who are not ready to
commit yet to a fully free OS, while their use of free software is
increasing (in particular, I'm thinking of people working on proprietary
Unices extended with free software and people working with Cygwin32 under
Windows). While I personally don't use such platforms whenever possible, I
do advocate the use of free software on them, as it can start people on a
migration path to a fully free environment.

> Definitions
> -----------
> FREE PLATFORM: A Free Platform is defined to be any Platform
> whose software component satisfies the following conditions
> technically, legally, and free of charge for all entities:

I haven't studied your definition in detail, but it looks like a platform
that uses the SCSL would match; are you sure that's what you want? (See e.g.
http://perens.com/Articles/StarOffice.html).

Ray
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