Hi. I don't agree with your analysis for the following reasons:
With regard to clause 1 in your post, simply charging a fee for support of the package, doesn't render the package non-free because support in whatever form, technical support, CD media costs etc., is tangential to the original software which continues to remain free.
With regard to clause 4 in your post, the forcible inclusion of standard exceutables and testcases doesn't make the software non-free
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In point 1, I was not referring to charging a fee for support etc., but referring to "You may not charge a fee for this Package itself". So one is not allowed to make money selling just the software. DFSG "Free Redistribution" says "The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software".
And with regards to point 4:
If I port a "test suite" licensed under this license to some other platform (say Windows) and the APIs are different there, I am still being forced to distribute the original testcases even though (a) they are not relevant (b) the new tests are 'renamed' (like test-cd is called test-chdir) and there is no confusion with the original testcases.
Also, I might not have sufficient space to distribute the original testcases in binary form (say when I am using a floppy to distribute the modifications) and essentially this is a non-free restriction.
I've addressed point 1 in my reply to your 2nd comment. So I'll focus on point 4 here.
Stating that renaming the testcases (although convenient), wouldn't impinge on the freedoms of both the buyer or seller, does not address the question of whether including the standard cases would do so
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I would refute this argument with the "desert island test". One could choose a different media but imagine an island where only floppies are available, a seller on the island is affected by this license restriction.
I am basing my conclusions on my reading of the DFSG FAQ. I got onto reading licenses because of this news that Microsoft to Submit Shared Source Licenses to OSI.
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In point 1, I was not referring to charging a fee for support etc., but referring to "You may not charge a fee for this Package itself". So one is not allowed to make money selling just the software. DFSG "Free Redistribution" says "The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software".
And with regards to point 4:
If I port a "test suite" licensed under this license to some other platform (say Windows) and the APIs are different there, I am still being forced to distribute the original testcases even though (a) they are not relevant (b) the new tests are 'renamed' (like test-cd is called test-chdir) and there is no confusion with the original testcases.
Also, I might not have sufficient space to distribute the original testcases in binary form (say when I am using a floppy to distribute the modifications) and essentially this is a non-free restriction.
What say you?
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Stating that renaming the testcases (although convenient), wouldn't impinge on the freedoms of both the buyer or seller, does not address the question of whether including the standard cases would do so ( ... )
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Thanks for this post BTW. I never read EULAs and such. Hopefully, this should help cure my laziness :-)
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I am enjoying this discussion.
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Me too. It's informative.
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