Discuss mailing list

["Daniel Quintiliani" <danq AT runbox.com>]

Hi,

I have suggested several times on the list and on IRC that the use of .libre 
as a replacement for .free is not a good one as the charter for .free/.libre 
violates "libre" according to every definition, and may even violate the GPL 
if such material was hosted on one.

The .free charter creates a walled garden of non-commercial use. This would 
require gratis use of a domain, while libre use requires there be little 
restrictions on commercial use (usually requiring attribution or sharealike, 
applicable to both commercial and noncommercial).

This is true of both the FSF and the OSI. Creative Commons is a bit different 
as they have both libre and non-libre licenses, as well as a CC-approved 
"compatible licenses" exception to -SA licenses, and CC0 is considered a 
waiver unless the "public license fallback" takes effect. CC0 and other 
public domain equivalent licenses forbid any restrictions be placed on the 
user.

I've suggested this problem be solved by using a different TLD such as 
.noncom, and proposed merging into .null (which I was unaware is also 
non-commercial but not explicitly walled-garden like .free/.libre). However, 
I was silenced as my proposed merger into .null was in the voting thread.

However, there is a better way to handle this problem than all that drama 
back.

The owner of the .libre TLD should add to the charter something like:

"Libre exception to noncommercial use - Commercial use of a .libre domain is 
permitted if the primary purpose is the hosting of, promotion of, or the site 
itself is:

1) Free content released under a license created or approved by the Free 
Software Foundation,
2) Open source content released under a license created or approved by the 
Open Source Initiative,
3) Content released under a license or waiver created or approved by Creative 
Commons,
4) Content in the public domain
5) Content released under a public domain equivalent license."

As OpenNIC users have no power over the .libre charter, this is just a 
discussion thread, and if the .libre TLD admin disapproves, we could have a 
nonbinding vote just to see the community's opinion.

Anyone else have comments or similar concerns?

--

-Dan Q