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What's with the unfree license?

Open MatthewCroughan opened this issue 1 year ago • 0 comments

The https://github.com/trezor/trezor-suite/blob/develop/LICENSE.md indicates that this code is unfree, as it is not available to be freely distributed, modified, etc.

specifically excludes the right to distribute the software outside of your company.

"company" is left undefined and it is not clear what the rights of a non-company are.

This means many Linux distributions cannot distribute, package or modify the Trezor code. We could get written permission from Trezor on a per-distro basis, but even this is not a solution. As an example, Debian has a rule about "no license exceptions specific to Debian", to avoid a problem where forks could end up in violation, since written approval cannot necessarily include forks.

Here's an example in practice, where NixOS/Nixpkgs are forced to mark Trezor code as unfree, which warns the user that they are using unfree software in their supply chain. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-22.05/pkgs/applications/blockchains/trezor-suite/default.nix#L57

MatthewCroughan avatar Aug 02 '22 16:08 MatthewCroughan