I should know better than to tie a general question to a specific one, as it always confuses people, but I did it again anyway....
Let me jump to the end first: Buchan Milne wrote: > Andi Payn wrote: >> ... > and even if > contrib allowed non-free software, Mandrakesoft sells copies of Mandrake > including contrib for more than $5, violating the license agreement. That was my main question, actually: Does Mandrake sell contrib CDs. Thanks for reading my mind and answering my question, even though I apparently forgot to ask it! (Somehow I deleted the paragraph about this before sending.) Regardless of anything else, that in itself means that Frodo isn't appropriate. > > Let me start with the specific question: Frodo (a C64 emulator) allows you > > to use, distribute, etc. Frodo binaries and source code, and to use > > Frodo's source in a compatibly-licensed larger work (anything > > non-commercial). > So there are restrictions on distribution of non-modified packages. This > violates the first requirement for OSI's open-source definition: > http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php Where in that paragraph did you see any restrictions on distribution of non-modified packages? Now, the $5 rule that appears later may well be a violation of OSI rule 1 or FSF freedom 2, but I want to make sure that this is you replying out of order, not me missing something vital. > > But you can't distributed a modified version of Frodo itself. This is the question I was most interested in. Given a package with a similar license, but without the $5 rule--in particular, if you were allowed to distribute unmodified source and binaries freely (at any charge), and you were also allowed to use any part of the source code (or binary, where that makes sense) in any other work, and you were allowed to include it as part of an aggregate product, but you were not allowed to distribute a modified version of the original, would that be (according to Mandrake) open source/free/acceptable? (Since IANAL either, I don't quite know how you distinguish between using pieces of the source in a different project vs. distributing a modified version of the original project. Which is a good reason not to try to write your own restrictions that prevent one use and not the other. And yet, developers try anyway.) > > Is this appropriate for contribs? > > No, it's not free software (it seems more like shareware), Shareware means software that you have to pay to use. You don't have to pay to use Frodo. You don't have to pay to distribute it. You don't have to pay to get or distribute the source code. You don't have to pay to pay to use pieces of the source code in other open source projects. So I don't see how this is anything like shareware. You do need permission to use pieces of the source code in commercial works, but then the same is true of anything under the GPL.
