[Haskell-cafe] Hackage and Free Software

[Mike Meyer]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Casey McCann <cam at uptoisomorphism.net>
wrote:
> Yes, although that would require some decision or consensus on what we
> expect to be able to do with code on Hackage...
>
> My personal minimum expectation would be that anyone can always "cabal
> install" anything and use it as-is without worrying about licensing.
> Only when modifying code, writing code that pulls in multiple
> dependencies, or uploading new code to hackage should licensing issues
> really need to be considered.

I'd rather that people not have to worry about license issues when
uploading new code, either. They're trying to give the community code
to use. If they want to attach restrictions on that use, it should be
the users problem to comply with those restrictions, not the uploaders
problem. At least beyond the permissions implicit in uploading the
software in the first place, anyway.

> For specific rules I suppose that would be something like requiring
> that everything can be:

So let's go over your list and see how a few licenses stack up.

> - Redistributed unmodified in source form

Pretty much the definition of open source.

> - Fetched and used locally with no restrictions

Softare licensed under the AGPL doesn't meet this requirement.

> - Built without modification and distributed in binary form with no
> restrictions beyond attribution and a link to Hackage

Only if "without modification" means you don't use a library built
from the software in an application you are planning on
distributing. Because if you do so, then your binary is considered a
derived work, and is no different from any other modification.

If you want the ability to build a library without modification and
then distribute a binary that uses it, then all the GPL licenses but
the LGPL fail this requirement, and most licenses on the "not
compatible with the GPL" list will fail it as well because the usual
reason for incompatibility is adding restrictions to such a
distribution.

> - Used and redistributed under the same license as any code it
> contains FFI bindings to.

Well, this depends on the license that the FFI code, not the license
of the code on hackage. Those are usually the same license, but it's
not a requirement.

This touches on a problem I have with the current license
field. People may want to dual license something, or dual licensing
may be required by code they have used in it. But there's no way to
indicate dual licensing except to pick otherLicense and then document
it a such. For instance, if you incorporate MPL and GPL code, the
resulting code should be dual licensed. It'd be nice if the license
field in a cabal file could be a list for these cases.

>  In particular, I'd personally be willing to accept code on Hackage
> that restricts redistribution with modifications, but probably not any
> other kind of significantly "non-free" license. I'd also be okay with
> Hackage rejecting packages that can't be used/redistributed due to
> conflicting licenses among its dependencies.

The dependency licensing only kicks in on redistribution if you're
distributing binaries. Redistributing source doesn't include any form
of the dependencies, so their licenses don't matter. An inability to
redistribute binaries because of depencency licenses doesn't bother me
much, so long as I can still use them. If I want to redistribute such
binaries, then I have a number of options. But that should be my
problem, and not something that should impact people who don't want to
distribute binaries by, for instance, having the software not be
available on Hackage.
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