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>>>>> On Fri, 01 May 2020, Alec Warner wrote: |
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> Consider a case where we have a piece of software and its open source. |
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> The open source software has various plugins, some of which look |
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> useful and we may wish to deploy them for Gentoo. However, we must |
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> consider the social contract, hence this discussion. |
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> Can we use the plugins if: |
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> (1) They are closed source (e.g. upstream provides binaries only with |
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> a restricted non-free license.) |
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IMHO it would contradict the Social Contract: |
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"However, Gentoo will never depend upon a piece of software or metadata |
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unless it conforms to the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser |
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General Public License, the Creative Commons - Attribution/Share Alike |
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or some other license approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)." |
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> (2) They are free software (e.g. FSF / OSI approved license) but they |
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> cost money. |
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No problem there. Also, we can freely redistribute them if they are free |
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software. |
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> (b) A subset, its free software and it costs money but it is free |
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> for open source communities to use. |
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Same as (2). |
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> (3) They are open source, but not free (e.g. they have some kind of |
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> open license but are not FSF / OSI approved.) |
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"Open source" has a well defined meaning. If the software is under an |
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open source license (i.e., a license in our @FREE group) then I don't |
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see any difference to (2). |
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OTOH, if they're only "free as in beer" then pretty much the same |
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argument as for (1) applies. |
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> (4) They are open source (and free), but we have chosen to use the |
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> built plugins (rather than building from source) for the sake of time |
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> and convenience. |
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That's not the Gentoo way of doing things. However, I don't see a |
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problem with the Social Contract. |
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|
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Ulrich |