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Most of the packages I have seen on Hackage are libaries released with open-source licenses and I think I have faint memory of a hackage upload with a missing license field triggering a bashing from hackage.haskell.org about not using an open-source license.

  1. Is there a rule that says every package hosted on Hackage is required to be made available under an open-source license?

  2. If you claim that there is such a rule, how does http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/Cabal/1.14.0/doc/html/Distribution-License.html relate?

Cetin Sert
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    Why would you want to upload anything else? – Jakub Hampl Apr 29 '12 at 02:42
  • @JakubHampl I did not. I just forgot to fill in the `license` field once and hackage.haskell.org almost scolded me for that :) or I was being particularly sensitive that day. Either way, it just dawned on me that 1) I have never seen any non-open-source licenses and that 2) I have also never seen any rule saying Hackage is open-source only. I just wanted to hear clear-cut community opinion on this matter. I have always loved to learn the rights a community agrees to establish and how their exercise or the results thereof may relate to the current atmosphere in the said community. – Cetin Sert Apr 29 '12 at 03:03
  • @JakubHampl: If I have to find a positive answer to your question though, I guess one might 1) have a useful application with a piece of source code that has been distilled down to bare minimums over many days of design work, 2) want to make it natively (via Hackage in the case of Haskell) available to everyone for their personal or commercial, verbatim or modified use; or source code scrutiny, 3) want **to not let anyone redistribute the application in any form (no verbatim or modified sources, no compiled binaries)**. – Cetin Sert Apr 29 '12 at 03:16
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about programming. [Why we're not customer support for your favorite company](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/255745/why-were-not-customer-support-for-your-favorite-company). – JasonMArcher Jun 16 '15 at 16:44

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You may use any license you like. That's what the OtherLicense constructor of License is for. That said, Hackage is a source distribution hub, so keep that in mind if you don't want people looking at your source.

Daniel Wagner
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    Oh I have just seen: https://gist.github.com/424219. – Cetin Sert Apr 29 '12 at 02:43
  • That siad, I thought Hackage was hosted for the community for free. Using it to distribute commercial applications could wear out this person(s) good will more quickly. So anyone who plans to use a proprietary licence on hackage please tread carefully. – Davorak Apr 29 '12 at 15:28
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    @Davorak I'm not so sure about that. The majority of packages use the BSD3 license, which is very friendly to commercial use. I think there's a general feeling of respect for anybody who gets to use Haskell to make money. – Daniel Wagner Apr 29 '12 at 18:32
  • @Daniel Wagner Do you think the community would be ok with a all copyrights withheld package that used Hackage as it main distribution model for commercial gain? That was the scenario I had in mind for my above comment, which I think I failed to communicate . Before doing something like that I would want to check with the people paying the hosting and bandwidth costs make sure it would not be a burden. – Davorak Apr 30 '12 at 18:36
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    @Davorak You can't both hold all copyrights and distribute via source. Building requires the right to copy. – Daniel Wagner Apr 30 '12 at 18:38