Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] Licensing advice for package submitters

[Assaf Gordon]

Hello Bruno,

On 09/23/2015 04:59 PM, Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro wrote:
> The submitter of the goasys[1] package said:
>
>    "(I want to use GNU public license but with one restriction: primary
>     license is for None Commercial use.  secondary license is for
>     Commercial use.  When this is not possible, which license can i use
>     instead?)"
>
> I can't quite understand what he intends by that comment.

He intends to subvert the license and spirit of GPL and limit the use of his 
program.
This makes it non-free and unacceptable to host on GNU Savannah,
also renders it an invalid license because GPL is specifically designed not to allow people to add 
restrictions and limit it's usage by fields (e.g. "only for academic use", "only for 
non-profit use", "only for good and not for evil").

There is no license that limits commercial use and still compatible with GPLv2 
(and GNU savannah).

> Furthermore, IANAL.

Neither am I :)

> What's the canonical approach?  To point him to FSF's licensing
> and compliance lab[2]?

This specific issue is answered here:
 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NoMilitary

More general information about licensing can be found here:
 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.en.html

List of free and non-free licenses is here:
 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html

Note that licensing it under GPL does not prevent him from selling his software:
 http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
also of interest, "selling exceptions":
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling-exceptions.html

regards,
 - assaf