Aladdin Free Public License

The Aladdin Free Public License, abbreviated AFPL, is a license written by L. Peter Deutsch for his Ghostscript PostScript language interpreter.

History

The license was derived from the GNU General Public License, but differs on two key points:

• The source code must be included with any software distribution.
• The software may not be sold, including any fees involved with distribution.

Deutsch chose to include a commercial restriction in the AFPL based on his observation of people including Ghostscript in commercial products without full license compliance.^[2] Recent versions of Ghostscript are not licensed under the AFPL.^[3]

Despite the name, the Free Software Foundation does not consider the AFPL a free software license.^[1] and it does not fall under the Copyfree Standard Definition

See also

• Dual-licensing

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Licenses - Free Software Foundation". http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses. Retrieved January 5, 2009. 
2. ^ Stig Hackvän (October 1998). "L. Peter Deutsch in conversation with Stig Hackvän" (in English) (CD-ROM). Dr Dobb's Journal. CMP Media LLC. http://devlinux.org/deutsch-interview.html. Retrieved 2007-07-21. "As you recall, I promised Stallman that I would continue to distribute Ghostscript with the GNU license. But I saw a number of companies bundling Ghostscript with commercial products while just barely complying with the letter of the GNU license, so I decided that I did not want to make Ghostscript as available for commercial distribution as it would be with the GNU license." 
3. ^ "Ghostscript, Ghostview and GSview". http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost. Retrieved 2007-07-21. 

External links

• Aladdin Free Public License (original text)