About closed-source ports...

[ck74]

Hello!

Couls someone please tell me how a user can restrict freebsd to install open-source ports only? Well, for example if you want to install www/opera, 'make install' does not warn user that this port uses closed-source (binary distribution) only.

Regards,

[Edwin Groothuis]

On Sun, Jun 01, 2008 at 02:24:04AM -0700, ck74 wrote:
> Couls someone please tell me how a user can restrict freebsd to install
> open-source ports only? Well, for example if you want to install www/opera,
> 'make install' does not warn user that this port uses closed-source (binary
> distribution) only.

That kind of information is not stored in the ports framework.

Edwin
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[Matthew Seaman-2]

ck74 wrote:

> Couls someone please tell me how a user can restrict freebsd to install
> open-source ports only? Well, for example if you want to install www/opera,
> 'make install' does not warn user that this port uses closed-source (binary
> distribution) only.

This isn't functionality that the ports system sets out to provide,
I'm afraid.  The ports tree deals with software of all sorts -- even
down to closed source binaries that you may need to purchase a licence
for to run legally (eg security/f-prot).

Where licencing terms restrict distribution there are a couple of flags:
'NO_CDROM' (may not be included in a set of CDROMs or similar sold for
profit: eg biology/fasta) and 'NO_PACKAGE' (may not be distributed in
compiled form -- eg. comms/hcfmdm, although NO_PACKAGE is also frequently
used for otherwise open software that has to be compiled against a
particular kernel image to work properly, eg audio/emu10kx).

There's a 'NO_BUILD' flag which is used for ports that install pre-built
binaries, but that's unlikely to be much help for you, as in by far the
majority of cases where it is used, it's because the port installs code
written in a scripting language (eg databases/phpmyadmin).

Some ports will make you jump through hoops to obtain the distribution
files -- eg java/jdk16 where you not only have to register with Sun to
even download the sources, but you then have to click the button to
agree to the license terms for the FreeBSD /patch set/ and also agree
to the  license terms as part of the build process.  (Anyone would be
forgiven for thinking Sun didn't want Java to become a widely adopted
technology, given the number of hurdles they put in the way of using
it...)

The once thing you can be sure of, licensing-wise, is that it is
absolutely permitted to use the ports to download and install[*] any
software included in it: the FreeBSD project as a whole, and the
ports committers in particular, are very hot on that subject.  That's
why, for instance, many of the SnertSoft Milters
(http://www.snertsoft.com/solutions.php)  aren't in ports: despite
being impeccably opensource and all that, the licence terms (requiring
hard-copy written permission from the author to permit redistribution)
are too onerous for the Ports system to be able to comply with.

        Cheers,

        Matthew

[*] But not necessarily /run/.

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