[not entirely OT] proper terms for grades of freedom

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 02:04:29PM +0300, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:

> Is there an "official" term for software that comes with source code
> but does not allow one to modify or distribute it (modified or not)?
> [This was the original question that fueled my curiosity.]

By giving up any of those freedoms, it means you give up on using free
software. See (a random comment from today)
http://lwn.net/Articles/391578/ . But you asked a technical question,
and thus I'll focus on it.

> 
> Are there licenses that provide the code but do not allow (even
> private) modifications?

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

> 
> Are there licenses that allow private modifications but not
> distribution of either original or modified program?

There surely are licenses that forbid redistribution. As for what you do
privately: is that really enforcable? I guess you can find or formulate
licenses that will allow or forbid that. But a free software mailing
list is really not the right place :-)

> 
> My search did not yield much. The "Open Source Definition", the
> "Debian Free Software Guidelines", the "Free Software Definition" all
> require redistribution. 

Sure. What you want is certainly not close to being free software. You
need not bother looking there.

> As far as I understand, "public domain" does
> not require opening the source. 

It means no copyright restrictions. And you want copyright restrictions.
Should have been obvious :-)

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