Debian -- License information

Debian -- License information
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License information
This page presents the opinion of some debian-legal contributors on how
certain licenses follow the
Debian Free Software
Guidelines
(DFSG). Most of these opinions were formed in
discussions on the
debian-legal mailing list
in response to questions from
potential package maintainers or licensors. We welcome
enquiries from maintainers considering particular licenses, but
we encourage most maintainers to use one of the common licenses:
GPL, LGPL, modified BSD, or Artistic.
Software packaged for Debian is normally classified into one of four
categories. There is free software (main), non-free software and firmware
(non-free, non-free-firmware), free software which depends on some non-free
software (contrib) and software which cannot be redistributed
(not included).
Debian Policy section 2
explains exactly how the DFSG
are applied to the archive. If in doubt, maintainers are
asked to email debian-legal about licenses, including the text
of any new license into the body of the email.
You may find it helpful to
search the list archives
for the name of the license before emailing lists with questions
about it. If you still email questions, please link to some of
the previous relevant discussions.
debian-legal is advisory. The actual decision-makers are the
ftpmasters and the package maintainers. However, if one cannot
convince most of the generally liberal debian-legal contributors,
it's probably not clear that the software follows the DFSG.
Because the actual decision-makers are the
ftpmasters and the package maintainers, it is a very good idea
to check
the ftpmasters REJECT FAQ
and search site:packages.debian.org for any license that you doubt,
to look for other examples of its handling for debian.
(The search works because package copyright files are published on
packages.debian.org as plain text.)
Other lists are maintained by the
Free Software
Foundation
(FSF) and the
Open Source
Initiative
(OSI). Please note however, that
the Debian project decides on particular packages rather than
licenses in abstract, and the lists are general explanations. It
is possible to have a package containing software under a
"free" license with some other aspect that makes it non-free.
Sometimes, debian-legal comments on a license in abstract, not
applied to any particular software. While these discussion
can suggest possible problems, often no firm answers can be
reached until some specific software is examined.
You may contact debian-legal if you have questions or comments
about these summaries.
Licenses currently found in Debian main include:
GNU General Public License
(common)
GNU Lesser General Public License
(common)
GNU Library General Public License (common)
Modified BSD License
(common)
Perl Artistic license
(common)
Apache License
Expat/MIT-style licenses
zlib-style licenses
LaTeX Project Public License
Python Software Foundation License
Ruby's License
PHP License
W3C Software Notice and License
OpenSSL License
Sleepycat License
Common UNIX Printing System License Agreement
vhf Public License
"No problem Bugroff" license
Unmodified BSD License (also known as the
original or 4-clause BSD license.
It included an advertising requirement and is now deprecated even
by the BSD project.)
public domain (not a license, strictly speaking)
IBM Public License Version 1.0
If you use one of these licenses,
please try to use the latest version and edit no more than necessary,
unless indicated otherwise.
Licenses marked (common) can be found in
/usr/share/common-licenses
on a Debian system.
Licenses currently found in the non-free archive section include:
NVIDIA Software License
SCILAB License
Limited Use Software License Agreement
Non-Commercial License
FastCGI / Open Market License
LaTeX2HTML License
Open Publication License
Free Document Dissemination License
AT&T Open Source License
Apple Public Source License
Aladdin Free Public License
Generic amiwm License (an XV-style license)
Digital License Agreement
Moria/Angband license
Unarj License
id Software License
qmail terms
Please do not upload software under these licenses to the
main archive.
Additionally, some software is not distributable (for example,
has no license at all), even in non-free.
Work in Progress
For help with interpreting the DFSG, you should check the
DFSG FAQ
that answers some common questions about the DFSG and how to analyse
software.
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Last Modified: Fri, Apr 4 16:26:16 UTC 2025