Silly question: are usage restrictions covered by the OSD?

Arnoud Engelfriet galactus at stack.nl
Wed Oct 15 16:51:03 UTC 2003


Hi,

This may be a silly question as I'm probably overlooking something,
but as far as I can tell the Open Source Definition does not
forbid any general restrictions on "usage" of software. The closest
thing is "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor", but
that only forbids exclusion of _some types_ of usage, not exclusions
on usage by everyone.

Would something like "You may only use this editor if you release 
all works you create with it as open source software" fail under
OSD #6, and if not, why would it fail the OSD?

The FSF says quite clearly that you should have "The freedom to 
run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)". Is this the
same as OSD #6 or do they indeed require something broader here?

Arnoud

-- 
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
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