Re: nmap is non-free software

[Marius Bakke]

"Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org> skriver:

>    > nmap is no longer free software; the license prohibits non-commercial
>    > usage.  I do not think it has ever been truley GPLv2orlater either; it
>    > has been a licensed "based" on the GPLv2 -- see attached file
>    > (see nmap-7.70-COPYING.text).
>
>    There's a discussion about this going on in a bug report filed upstream:
>    <https://github.com/nmap/nmap/issues/2199>
>
> Yes, but the license for nmap today is though non-free, and has so
> been since version 3.30.  The entry in the FSD is also incorrect, it
> is not GPLv2orlater -- it is not even GPL.

When I raised this issue on guix-devel@, I got a private reply from
Gordon Fyodor Lyon <fyodor@nmap.org>:

    Hi Brett and Marius.  I can't easily respond to the GUIX mailing list (I
    don't think my response would be threaded correctly), so I'm reaching out
    directly to say that I understand how the current license wording could
    give that interpretation, but it's not what we meant.  Instead of
    mentioning the "software" of "proprietary software companies", it should
    probably mention the "proprietary software" of "software companies".
    Because as you noted, a "proprietary software company" might still make
    some free software too.  And maybe a "free software company" could still
    have some non-free products.  I'll try to fix this before the next Nmap
    release.

I read the intent of the license change as to prevent "tivoization", but
the unfortunate wording is still around.

Alfred: Are you asserting that previous versions are non-free too?  Can
you point out the relevant text from the old license (below)?

  
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nmap/nmap/5c0bf18595524653d49792154520ee2c561c67c0/COPYING

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