Is Microsoft's PowerShell a Free Software?
According to PowerShell is open sourced and is available on Linux, PowerShell is open source.
Deb files of PowerShell are available from GitHub. Though License says MIT license,
Before installing to Trisquel GNU/Linux-Libre 7.0 (running with wholly of a free software), I want to make sure whether mentioned PowerShell for GNU/Linux is a Free Software?
This is on the Wikipedia page:
"MIT License[1] (but the Windows component remains proprietary)"
I have no idea what the "Windows component" nor do I know if it is in the GNU/Linux version, but since it is Microsoft software, it would be advisable not to run this program at all.
If it has anything to do with microsoft you better off without.
> No, it's not: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/blob/master/license_thirdparty_proprietary.txt
I extracted the following text from the above mentioned license file:
---------
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT .NET LIBRARY
4.
...
You may not
• work around any technical limitations in the software;
• reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that
applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
• publish the software for others to copy;
• rent, lease or lend the software;
• transfer the software or this agreement to any third party; or
• use the software for commercial software hosting services.
Also note that free/libre software mustn’t depend on non-free ones,
*except* if it’s to reverse engineer it, replace it, or if the non-free
one is a “System Library” according to the GNU GPL 3 (at least), as can
be seen in
[[https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidech10.html#x13-730009.3.3
]].
--
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gratis).
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Well pointed. What is the meaning of being free if it depend on proprietary software?
The program in question is under a free software license that respects users' freedom and community: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
But it does not work without another program (or, more probably, a library) under a proprietary software license that does not respect users' freedom and community.
As a consequence there actually actually is no way to use the free software program in complete freedom. For instance, in the late 90s, KDE could not be used in complete freedom: although it was free software, it depended on Qt, which was, at that time, proprietary.