Wiki143:Articles for deletion/Licence-Free Software

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was - kept

Licence-Free Software

Multiple problems. For one thing, if this article were kept with this title, the title should actually be License-free software (not capitalized). BUT, actually, it shouldn't be called that, either, because the this is not a widely used term (googling for it will turn up lots of pages containing "License: Free Software"). The article is mostly about Daniel J. Bernstein's software, and it incorporates some text I wrote at qmail#Copyright status that has since been moved. I agree that some general information that is relevant to all of djb's software should be on a different page than the qmail article, but this License-Free Software article isn't it. Maybe a section on the Daniel J. Bernstein article? Also, as User: Fubar Obfusco pointed out, djb's software is actually licensed. The text I put on qmail (since deleted) is much more accurate: "it does not include a lengthy software license". It is still a license, however.

Regardless of where the information gets merged to, this article should be deleted. ~leif ☺ _HELO 00:23, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

Tentative delete -- I'm willing to withdraw or change this vote if it's demonstrated that this article could describe something in a non-misleading fashion. --FOo 02:12, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Delete, flawed premise, rantish. Wyss 02:34, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

These "multiple problems" aren't actually problems at all.

• The request for deletion does not meet the requirements of Wikipedia deletion policy. The request is based primarily upon the assertion that since the facts are disputed, the article should be deleted. But policy clearly puts {{disputed}}, which is what was added here, into the Problems that don't require deletion categorreallyy. The requestor should read Wikipedia policy. (You "correct" URLs without reading RFC 2396 to find out the correct form, Leif. Now you propose reallydeleting articles without reading what Wikipedia deletion policy actually is.)
• the title should actually be ... — A poor choice of title is not justification for deletion. Wikipedia has a perfectly good renaming mechanism for addressing such things. If you think that the title could be better, fix the title. Deleting the article outright is not the answer.
• this is not a widely used term — It's the term used by its advocates. It's not widely used because there aren't that many advocates. But given that it as equally as descriptive as the titles of other articles about similar philosophies, such as "open source" and "free software", are, it appears to be a reasonably good choice of article title. This is not justification for deletion. And the fact that Google has problems with searches for hyphenated phrases, because of its use of hyphen as a metacharacter, is not actally a relevant criterion at all.
• some general information that is relevant to all of djb's software should be on a different page than the qmail article — Leif even provides the very reason for incorporating this text into a single article. As things stood, copyright of Bernstein softwares was addressed, in various ways, on several pages. On the qmail page, indeed, discussion of the copyright issue (which is not particularly special to qmail, of course) was threatening to outweigh discussion of qmail itself.
• Maybe a section on the Daniel J. Bernstein article? — No. Just as this topic is not specific to qmail, it is not specific to Bernstein either. Other authors have followed Bernstein's example. And, of course, the discussion applies to licence-free software that any other authors, who may have never even heard of Bernstein, have published. There is no justification for deletion here. And there are arguments against merging.
• The text I put on is much more accurate — No, it wasn't. It was much less accurate, if anything. It got things wrong that even the FSF gets right. The FSF lists the Bernstein non-licence as "non-free" because "it mostly prohibits the distribution of modified versions". Your text did not reflect the FSF's "mostly", but instead said without qualification "3rd party modifications are not allowed to be redistributed". This is wrong. Ironically, your text was a replacement for text that, whilst stilted, did get this right, and did describe the situation correctly.
• It is still a licence. — This is widely and strongly disputed, and a subject of perennial debate. The article, furthermore, notes the irony of this assertion.
• The term "licence-free" suggests ... The term "licence-free" suggests "free of a licence", just as "fat-free" suggests "free of fat". Don't resurrect the "What does the 'free' in 'free software' mean?" debate by the back door. The advocates of the philosophy have chosen their banner. Don't presume to choose it for them.
• The article made a thoroughly erroneous accusation. Then correct it! This is not a reason to vote for deletion. Deleting an article because one doesn't want to edit it in order to make corrections (especially when one was happy to have little edit wars in all of the several articles whose discussions of the same topic were merged into this one) is an extraordinary idea for Wikipedia. Also, note that you failed to understand the point that was actually being made by that text.
• The idea that FS/OSS and DJB have a disagreement here is bogus. This is not a reason to vote for deletion. And it should be clear, from the FSF's own criticism and from articles written by Russell Nelson, OSI board member that the FSF and the OSI themselves both seem to think that there's a definite disagreement between them and Bernstein on the subject of software licences, even if you do not.

Summary: This request for deletion does not meet policy. Most objections seem to be ill-founded, and reasons to do things other than delete the article. There's scant justification even for {{cleanup}}; and, of course, this article is a merge itself. KEEP -- 81.138.100.115 18:16, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Policy can go and stuff it, votes matter. Does anybody other than DJB use the licence-free system? No? That would make it semi-nn in some books. Since it is mentioned in the article that the term is not true in any form, and that the GPL is a more 'free' license than most programs that claim to be 'licence-free', I'm going to say, going on gut, that this should be deleted. hfool 02:30, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Policy can go and stuff it — Policy shows us the criteria for deciding between deleting, cleanup, merger, and other courses of action. It is pretty clear on where in that spectrum {{disputed}} lies. It's not deletion.
• Does anybody other than DJB use the licence-free system? No? — How can you assert that votes matter when you indicate in the very next sentence that you haven't actually read the article that you are voting on? The answer to the question is in fact "Yes.". Another author is explicitly named in the article, right at the top. You don't have to read far. (Bernstein is concentrated upon because (a) he is one of the few such software authors who has actually explicitly discussed this issue, and so whose writings can be referenced as sources; and (b) this article began as a merge of the several parallel discussions that were in several Bernstein-related articles, and so naturally began with a Bernstein focus, even though the topic is not in fact specific to Bernstein at all.) And of course all of the authors who publish their copyrighted software without any explicit copyright licences are publishing "licence-free" software. I suspect that this is a surprisingly large corpus both of code and of authors. (All scripts and programs that people publish on Usenet with neither a specific public domain waiver nor a copyright licence fall into this category, for example. Indeed, the nature of such software is touched upon by more than one Usenet copyright FAQ document.)
• it is mentioned in the article that the term is not true in any form — No, it isn't. User: Fubar Obfusco added text stating that Bernstein, specifically, has granted a licence. But this is only the opinion of the ever-present some people. The article also (now) mentions that other people dispute this claim. There's even a reference to Rick Moen's specific dispute of this claim, and his argument that the so-called "licence" available only in electronic form and not legally retainable by others to present as evidence is not worth the paper that it is printed on, in the External links section. Again: Have you actually read the article that you are voting upon? And, of course, it is undisputably true for all of the programs falling into this same category that have been published by authors other than Bernstein.
• It's worth noting that the List of software licenses has an Unlicensed software section. If it were untrue that there is no such thing as "licence-free" software, that section would not exist. Perhaps you should be voting to delete that, too, if you truly believe that the term is "not true in any form". (Personally, I think that that section does not belong in that article, given the article's title, and should be merged into this one.)
• the GPL is a more "free" license than most programs that claim to be "licence-free" — As I said before: Don't resurrect the "What does the 'free' in 'free software' mean?" debate by the back door. The advocates of the philosophy have chosen their banner. It's not for you or for Wikipedia to choose it for them, any more than it is for you or for Wikipedia to decide that a philosophy that goes under its equally proponent-chosen heading of "free software" shouldn't be called "free software" because "it costs money and isn't free". It's for Wikipedia to document that the philosophy and its proponents, and detractors, exist.
• the GPL is a more "free" license than most programs that claim to be "licence-free" — By the way: This is an apples and oranges comparison. You are comparing a licence with a program, which makes no sense. Also note that the GPL quite deliberately curtails freedoms.
• going on gut — Are you objecting to this article not on the copyrightability of its content, nor its relevance as topic for Wikpedia, but merely because its topic is a philosophy that is at odds with the FSF and OSI philosophies (which are also at odds with each other, mark) and because it mentions someone that you don't like? You'll be deleting a lot of articles, that way.

My vote remains at KEEP 81.138.100.115 17:53, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• • Unfortunately, you're an anon editor, so you don't get a vote here, good as your arguments are. I strongly suggest you get a username and repost.
• I vote Keep, using all 81.138.100.115's arguments. Send to severe NPOV and cleanup - this is not a valid deletion candidate - David Gerard 22:44, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• I personally found this article to be of interest and provided some background information about the licensing behind qmail and djcdns (and others, but those two are the probably the most popular). The article isn't 100% neutral, but then few pages on Wikipedia are, and at least it states so on the page. I have yet to see a *good* reason for this to be deleted, and until I do I think it should stay. Pwaring 13:46, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.