Debian Free Software Guidelines

The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) is a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is a free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in Debian. The DFSG is part of the Debian Social Contract. The guidelines Free redistribution. Inclusion of source code. Allowing for modifications and derived works. Integrity of the author's source code (as a compromise). No discrimination against persons or groups. No discrimination against fields of endeavor, like commercial use. The license needs to apply to all to whom the program is redistributed. License must not be specific to a product. License must not restrict other software. The GNU GPL, BSD, and Artistic licenses are examples of licenses considered free. History The DFSG was first published together with the first version of the Debian Social Contract in July 1997. The primary author was Bruce Perens, with input from the Debian developers during a month-long discussion on a private mailing list, as part of the larger Debian Social Contract. Perens was copied to an email discussion between Ean Schuessler (then of Debian) and Donnie Barnes of Red Hat, in which Schuessler accused Red Hat of never elucidating its social contract with the Linux community. Perens realized that Debian did not have any formal social contract either, and immediately started creating one. The Open Source Definition was created by re-titling the exact text of the DFSG soon afterwards. DFSG was preceded by Free Software Foundation's Free Software Definition, which then defined three freedoms of Free Software (Freedom Zero was added later), but this text was not used in the creation of the DFSG. Once the DFSG became the Open Source Definition, Richard Stallman saw the need to differentiate free software from open source and promoted the Free Software Definition. Published versions of FSF's Free Software Definition existed as early as 1986, having been published in the first edition of the (now defunct) GNU's Bulletin. The core of the Free Software Definition was the (then) Three Freedoms, which preceded the drafting and promulgation of the DFSG, were unknown to its authors.