GNU Source Installer (sourceinstall) is Copyright (c) 2005 Claudio Fontana and is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This is a license that grants and protects freedoms. sourceinstall is thus Free Software. There is an exception in the m4/tcl.m4 file, which is Copyright (c) 1999-2000 Ajuba Solution, Copyright (c) 2002-2005 ActiveState Corporation. The m4/tcl.m4 file is licensed under a “revised BSD” license. See m4/license.terms. It has been slightly modified for GNU Source Installer.
Please note that “Free” in “Free Software” refers to liberty, not price. Think of “free speech” rather than “free beer”. The exact and legally binding distribution terms are spelled out below; in short, you have the right (freedom) to run and change sourceinstall and distribute it to other people, and even—if you want—charge money for doing either. The important restriction is that you have to grant your recipients the same rights and impose the same restrictions.
This method of licensing software is also known as open source because, among other things, it makes sure that all recipients will receive the source code along with the program, and be able to improve it. The GNU project prefers the term “free software” for reasons outlined at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html.
The exact license terms are defined by this paragraph and the GNU General Public License it refers to:
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program (look for the file called COPYING);
if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
You can contact the author (Claudio Fontana) by sending an email
to claudio@@gnu.org
In addition to this, this manual is free in the same sense:
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being ``GNU General Public License'' and ``GNU Free
Documentation License'', with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
The full texts of the GNU General Public License and of the GNU Free Documentation License are available below.