Re: [gentoo-dev] Packages without source code

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Thu, 3 Jan 2013, Rich Freeman wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:
>> We could easily solve this by adding a "binary-only" or
>> "no-source-code" tag to such packages. It would be included in the
>> @BINARY-REDISTRIBUTABLE license group, but not in @FREE. So such
>> packages would be excluded for users with ACCEPT_LICENSE="-* @FREE".

> As long as it is also marked with the BSD license I don't have a
> problem with this.  The license is, in fact, BSD, so we do need to
> keep that info around.

>> Thinking about the name, "no-source-code" might be a better choice
>> than "binary-only". As the GPL defines it, "The source code for a
>> work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications
>> to it." This may be binary, e.g. for pictures in a bitmap format.

> I understand the distinction adds value to our users, but I find it
> amusing that a computer scientist would even try to define the term
> "source code."  :)

Coming back to this old thread. I've recently added a "no-source-code"
license file [1]. This should be used for packages whose license would
otherwise match @FREE, but that don't qualify as free software because
of the missing source code.

Obviously, "no-source-code" alone isn't a license, so it cannot be the
only element of an ebuild's LICENSE variable.

Ulrich

[1] http://sources.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/gentoo-x86/licenses/no-source-code?view=markup