I don’t use Debian but I am considering it for a number of reasons. In the context of software for radios, I wanted to see where things stand and what packages are on debian. I wondered why there’s no Pothos package on Debian and I come to find out it’s for a ridiculous reason. But it’s also funny if you follow the trail. The trail goes all the way back to JSON (of all things) and its license.
Here it is:
http://www.json.org/license.html
This is the part that Debian doesn’t like:
“The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.”
Their lame argument is because, in lawyer-ese, they cannot guarantee that it will not be used for evil.
Are you still reading…? A side-note is that IBM lawyers sent a letter to the author asking if they could get a special license. He did and it said something like: “I give IBM permission to use this for evil.”!!
If you are curious it is at ~41 minutes in:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-C-JoyNuQJs
But why won’t Debian request such a license???