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2 - Raspberry PI Community Projects

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The existence of the non-free section particularly annoys the Free Soware<br />

Foundation, causing it, thus, to refuse to officially recommend<br />

Debian as an operating system.<br />

1.2.2. The Debian Free Soware Guidelines<br />

This reference document defines which software is “free enough” to be included in Debian. If a<br />

program's license is in accord with these principles, it can be included in the main section; on<br />

the contrary, and provided that free distribution is permitted, it may be found in the non-free<br />

section. The non-free section is not officially part of Debian; it is an added service provided to<br />

users.<br />

More than a selection criteria for Debian, this text has become an authority on the subject of free<br />

software, and has served as the basis for the “Open Source definition”. It is, thus, historically<br />

one of the first formalizations of the concept of “free software”.<br />

The GNU General Public License, the BSD License, and the Artistic License are examples of traditional<br />

free licenses that follow the 9 points mentioned in this text. Below you will find the text<br />

as it is published on the Debian website.<br />

➨ http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines<br />

1. Free redistribution. The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from<br />

selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution<br />

containing programs from several different sources. The license may not require a royalty<br />

or other fee for such sale.<br />

BACK TO BASICS<br />

Free licenses<br />

The GNU GPL, the BSD license, and the Artistic License all comply<br />

with the Debian Free Soware Guidelines, even though they are very<br />

different.<br />

The GNU GPL, used and promoted by the FSF (Free Soware Foundation),<br />

is the most common. Its main feature is that it also applies<br />

to any derived work that is redistributed: a program incorporating or<br />

using GPL code can only be distributed according to its terms. It prohibits,<br />

thus, any reuse in a proprietary application. This poses serious<br />

problems for the reuse of GPL code in free soware incompatible with<br />

this license. As such, it is sometimes impossible to link a program published<br />

under another free soware license with a library distributed<br />

under the GPL. On the other hand, this license is very solid in American<br />

law: FSF lawyers have participated in the draing thereof, and<br />

have oen forced violators to reach an amicable agreement with the<br />

FSF without going to court.<br />

➨ http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html<br />

The BSD license is the least restrictive: everything is permied, including<br />

use of modified BSD code in a proprietary application. Microso<br />

even uses it, basing the TCP/IP layer of Windows NT on that<br />

of the BSD kernel.<br />

Chapter 1 — The Debian Project<br />

7

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