Hi, I do not want to try to decide whether the FSF oder the OSI consider such licenses as free or non-free. I also do not know whether such Clauses are covered by the DFSG. I just want to list a few Reasons why I consider such licenses as strictly non-free and would prefer Debian to consider the same and give a few example to describe my position.
Such a clause excludes certain (or more likely undefinded) person subgroups from the rights all other user get for this software. Not per default, but after a certain action of the user, but the software restricts its use to certain person subgroups. That seems to me very arbitrary. One might say that is immoral to engage a patent action against a free software author, but immoral behaviour can be no reason to forbid the use of a free software, because that would make the software non-free. An example for this might be a license that forbids the use of the software for the production or use of weapons of mass destruction. While this may be morally legal it is definitively non-free. (In Fact to download the Plan9 OS you must agree to a similar clause. It is not part of the software, but you have to agree to it to download it. See [1].) Such a passus also is no legal protection against patent lawsuits. The fact that one uses the software or not has no impact on whether he would sue the author of the software. I would call such a passus very arbitrary Selection of the users. Like someone would prohibit using the software if you get divorsed. (One might say the in the case of patent lawsuits the author gets a real monetary harm, which is not the case here, but see again the example of the weapons of mass destruction from which the author could also get possibly harmed by.) I also see a big problem for the Debian project here if it decides to consider such licenses as free. For exampe a company XYZ. This company holds several patents, that it of course enforces. This company uses Debian (only the main tree) on its computer to be sure to have the right to use all of the contained software without verifying each software license in detail. Then one time it happens that this company sues an application developer that is also the developer of a software this company uses and has such a license (to make this example more realistic you could imagine that the author of the Software is IBM...). Now the license of the software would get invalid for XYZ. XYZ and other companies could not trust the classification of Debian anymore, because not in call cases it is assured that the user has the right to use use the software. [1] - http://cm.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/download.html