Re: enable MELPA & Marmalade by defaul [was: mykie.el]

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

    How many times did you pick a "random" package?  Once?
    What proportion of Marmalade packages have no license?

A program with no license notice is not free software.
(See http://gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NoLicense.)
It is very bad practice for a repository to permits nonfree programs.
Every repository should have a policy not to do that.

    > It seems like a reasonable assumption that the overwhelming mass is
    > licensed under the GPL, but I absolutely do think a user cannot tell
    > whether an unlabelled package is free or not, at least I can't, not
    > without consulting the author.

If a source file doesn't have a license notice then it is nonfree.

Maybe this policy results from a misunderstanding on the part
of whoever runs Marmalade.  We should try explaining the facts
about missing licenses and see if the maintainer of Marmalade
will change the policy to stop allowing them.  Can someone put me
in touch with the right people?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.