Free Software Directory talk:Requirements

Proposal: "Crippleware" and society's essential freedoms

During Kuhn's talk on LibrePlanet 2016, in the beginning of the talk, I could briefly listen to him talking about a case of dual licensing, where the "community"/"open source" edition of a software is under a free software license, and the "premium"/"commercial" edition may be under a non-free software license. So, I was thinking on this case, and here I'm suggesting for us to require a project, to be approved here, to meet at least one of these situations:

• The "premium"/"commercial" edition is also proven to be free software.
• The "community"/"open source" edition is proven to be as better as the counterpart, or even better.

If this proposal is accepted, we need to solve the associated problems in the following entries (either by simply disapproving them, or by contacting them, or both):

• Nginx: Comparison between Nginx and Nginx Plus. Note: The websites are different, but the Nginx project's actually links to the Nginx Plus edition whenever there is a new release of the Plus edition.
• NOLA: This proof requires non-free JavaScript in order to be seen. Go to the project's page, to "Download" and to any "Compare" button.
• Odoo/OpenERP: Comparison of the various editions.
• OrangeHRM: Comparison of OrangeHRM editions.
• VtigerCRM: Needs more investigation and clarification. This page evidences the availability of an "open source" edition. There is also this other page that, despite not evidencing the "open source" edition, shows differences between some of the currently available editions.

--Adfeno (talk) 16:32, 15 May 2016 (EDT)

I think this is an important criteria to consider because when these "premium"/"commercial" editions are better than the "open source"/"community" editions, or when they aren't free/libre, they still allow the proprietors to exercise unjust/unfair power over society.

We must also investigate ProcessMaker, because this page's HTML source evidences the existence of different editions.

There might be other entries to be investigated.

Besides, if you don't mind, I would like to apologize for making the Odoo entry. I created it because someone from Brazil blindly told me that it was free/libre software, and so I had to create the entry to see if that was true, then I saw Odoo being approved, and since the approval, I have recommended it at least two times (always referencing to the approved entry).

--Adfeno (talk) 10:27, 16 May 2016 (EDT)

Just for the record, for those wanting to change the requirements according to what is taken as consideration with this proposal: I spoke with contributors of the directory and some organizers of the meetings (Jgay participated on the debate), and we consider that these crippleware are somehow useful free/libre software (specially because a free software activist can make a parent project out of it), and so we came up with two alternatives that can be used instead of removing the entries. At least one of the following is recommended:

• Insert a message telling the viewer that the entry is about the free/libre edition of the software, and not about the non-free one, and that the free software movement doesn't recommend the non-free one. I, personally, suggest that this message is displayed with emphasis (like red boxes, with warning symbol and so on), but it's OK to have a simple text message (similar but longer than what the entry about Krita has).
• Instead of linking to the projects official page, resources, documentation, source code and so on: Link to a page from a free system distribution that provides such software. This avoids attracting people to the non-free functional data.

--Adfeno (talk) 09:23, 18 June 2016 (EDT)