Silly question: are usage restrictions covered by the OSD?

[Brian Behlendorf]

I used to argue that the OSD should only certify licenses that talked
about redistribution, not use... but lost that argument, and there are
several licenses that limit use.  I can't find anything in the OSD that
would invalidate a term like you describe; I say that partly to dare other
folks on this list to take a look.  Note that it basically reduces your
software to "shareware", relying on people to pay appropriately if they
violate that term.  That might not be such a bad thing though.

	Brian


On Wed, 15 Oct 2003, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
> 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
>
>
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