[gentoo-dev] Clarify the "as-is" license?

[Ulrich Mueller]

From time to time cases like the following are brought up to
licenses@g.o, for a package that is labelled with
LICENSE="as-is":

| Permission to use, copy, modify and/or distribute this software in
| both binary and source form, for non-commercial purposes, is hereby
| granted [...]

This is clearly not free/open-source software because of the
non-commercial restriction.

In my understanding, our "as-is" really is what opensource.org lists
as "Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer" [1]. Obviously it's
very permissive (comparable to MIT or BSD-2). It is also included in
our @OSI-APPROVED license group.

So, either we should only mark free software with the as-is label.
Then it might help if the text was clarified as in the patch below.

Or we continue marking random non-free stuff with as-is. Then we
should IMHO remove as-is from our free license groups, create a
licenses/HPND file (text as in [1]), and move the free packages to it.

Currently, 679 packages have as-is in their LICENSE.

Ulrich

[1] <http://opensource.org/licenses/HPND>

--- as-is	12 Jan 2012 19:03:23 -0000	1.3
+++ as-is	23 Sep 2012 09:43:19 -0000
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
-This is a generic place holder for a class of licenses that boil down to do
-no guarantees and all you get is what you have. The language is usually
+This is a generic place holder for a class of licenses that allow you to
+do most anything you want with the software. The language is usually
 similar to:
 
   Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
@@ -12,13 +12,11 @@
   suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is"
   without express or implied warranty.
 
-
-You will need to check the license that came with the software for the exact
-specifics. Generally you are free to do most anything you want with "as is"
-software but you should not take this license as legal advice.
+You will need to check the license that came with the software (usually as
+permission notice in the source files themselves) for the exact wording.
 
 Note: Most all license have an "as is" clause. For our purposes this does
-not make all software in this category. This category is for software with
-very little restrictions.
+not make all software in this category. This category is for software that
+complies with the Open Source Definition and has very little restrictions.
 
 The information in this license about licenses is presented "as is". :-P