Re: [gentoo-nfp] Social contract and its effect on upstream software choices

[Ulrich Mueller <ulm@gentoo.org>]

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>>>>> On Fri, 01 May 2020, Alec Warner wrote:

> Consider a case where we have a piece of software and its open source.
> The open source software has various plugins, some of which look
> useful and we may wish to deploy them for Gentoo. However, we must
> consider the social contract, hence this discussion.

> Can we use the plugins if:
>  (1) They are closed source (e.g. upstream provides binaries only with
> a restricted non-free license.)

IMHO it would contradict the Social Contract:
"However, Gentoo will never depend upon a piece of software or metadata
unless it conforms to the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser
General Public License, the Creative Commons - Attribution/Share Alike
or some other license approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)."

>  (2) They are free software (e.g. FSF / OSI approved license) but they
> cost money.

No problem there. Also, we can freely redistribute them if they are free
software.

>    (b) A subset, its free software and it costs money but it is free
> for open source communities to use.

Same as (2).

>  (3) They are open source, but not free (e.g. they have some kind of
> open license but are not FSF / OSI approved.)

"Open source" has a well defined meaning. If the software is under an
open source license (i.e., a license in our @FREE group) then I don't
see any difference to (2).

OTOH, if they're only "free as in beer" then pretty much the same
argument as for (1) applies.

>  (4) They are open source (and free), but we have chosen to use the
> built plugins (rather than building from source) for the sake of time
> and convenience.

That's not the Gentoo way of doing things. However, I don't see a
problem with the Social Contract.

Ulrich

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