Defining Free Software Business
Alfred M. Szmidt
ams at gnu.org
Sat Jun 24 13:55:28 UTC 2006
What about classifying businesses according to the Debian
guidelines (main, contrib and non-free)?
This would undermine the goal of a Free Software Business and the GNU
Business Network. This is also why e.g. Debian is not listed as a
recommended GNU/Linux system by the FSF and the GNU project simply
because Debian includes non-free software.
You will only end up promoting non-free software by allowing business
who promote and/or support non-free softawre to be listed as a Free
Software Business or as a business that is part of the GNU Business
Network.
The FSF has a list of Free Software business already, known as the
Service Directory (www.fsf.org/resources/services/).
Here are the requirements that need to be fullfilled for a
company/person to be listed in the Service Directory:
| This is a list of people who have asked to be listed as offering
| support services for GNU and other free software for a fee or in
| some cases at no charge. To have your information added to this
| list, please send an e-mail to <service at fsf.org>.
|
| The information comes from the people who asked to be listed; we do
| not include any information we know to be false, but we cannot check
| out any of the information; we are transmitting it to you as it was
| given to us and do not promise it is correct.
|
| Also, this is not an endorsement of the people listed here.
|
| We have no opinions and usually no information about the abilities
| of any specific person. We provide this list to enable you to
| contact service providers and decide for yourself whether to hire
| one.
|
| Before FSF will list your name in the Free Software Service
| Directory, we ask that you agree informally to the following terms:
|
| 1. You will not restrict (except by copyleft) the use or
| distribution of any software, documentation, or other technical
| information you supply anyone in the course of modifying,
| extending, or supporting free software. This includes any
| information specifically designed to ameliorate the use of free
| software.
|
| 2. You will not take advantage of contact made through the Service
| Directory to advertise an unrelated business (e.g., sales of
| proprietary information). You may spontaneously mention your
| availability for general consulting, but you should not promote a
| specific unrelated business unless the client asks. Please
| include some indication of your rates, because otherwise users
| have nothing to go by. Please put each e-mail address inside
| "<>". Please put nothing else inside "<>". Thanks!
Cheers.
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