

<p>Version 1.0 ratified on July 5, 1997.</p>

<p>Superseded by
<a href="social_contract.1.1">Version 1.1</a> ratified on April 26, 2004,
and the <a href="social_contract">current version 1.2</a> ratified on
October 1st, 2022.</p>

<p>Debian, the producers of the Debian GNU/Linux system, have created the
<strong>Debian Social Contract</strong>. The <a href="#guidelines">Debian Free Software
Guidelines (DFSG)</a> part of the contract, initially designed
as a set of commitments that we agree to abide by, has been adopted by
the free software community as the basis of the
<a href="https://opensource.org/docs/osd">Open Source Definition</a>.

<HR>
<h2>"Social Contract" with the Free Software Community</h2>
<ol>
   <li><p><strong>Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software</strong>
     <p>We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution
     entirely free software. As there are many definitions of
     free software, we include the guidelines we use to determine
     if software is "<em>free</em>" below.  We will support our
     users who develop and run non-free software on Debian, but
     we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free
     software.</p>
   <li><strong>We Will Give Back to the Free Software Community</strong>
     <p>When we write new components of the Debian system, we will
     license them as free software. We will make the best system
     we can, so that free software will be widely distributed and
     used. We will feed back bug-fixes, improvements, user
     requests, etc. to the "<em>upstream</em>" authors of software
     included in our system.</p>
   <li><p><strong>We Won't Hide Problems</strong>
     <p>We will keep our entire bug-report database open for public
     view at all times. Reports that users file on-line will
     immediately become visible to others.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Our Priorities are Our Users and Free Software</strong>
     <p>We will be guided by the needs of our users and the
     free-software community. We will place their interests first
     in our priorities. We will support the needs of our users
     for operation in many different kinds of computing
     environment. We won't object to commercial software that is
     intended to run on Debian systems, and we'll allow others to
     create value-added distributions containing both Debian and
     commercial software, without any fee from us. To support
     these goals, we will provide an integrated system of
     high-quality, 100% free software, with no legal restrictions
     that would prevent these kinds of use.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards</strong>
     <p>We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of
     programs that don't conform to the 
     <a href="#guidelines">Debian Free Software Guidelines</a>.
     We have created "<tt>contrib</tt>" and "<tt>non-free</tt>"
     areas in our FTP archive for this software. The software in
     these directories is not part of the Debian system, although
     it has been configured for use with Debian.  We encourage CD
     manufacturers to read the licenses of software packages in
     these directories and determine if they can distribute that
     software on their CDs. Thus, although non-free software
     isn't a part of Debian, we support its use, and we provide
     infrastructure (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing
     lists) for non-free software packages.
</ol>
<HR>
<h2 id="guidelines">The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)</h2>
<ol>
   <li><p><strong>Free Redistribution</strong>
     <p>The license of a Debian component may not restrict any
     party from selling or giving away the software as a
     component of an aggregate software distribution containing
     programs from several different sources. The license may not
     require a royalty or other fee for such sale.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Source Code</strong>
     <p>The program must include source code, and must allow
     distribution in source code as well as compiled
     form.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Derived Works</strong>
     <p>The license must allow modifications and derived works, and
     must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as
     the license of the original software.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Integrity of The Author's Source Code</strong>
     <p>The license may restrict source-code from being distributed
     in modified form <strong>only</strong> if the license allows
     the distribution of "<tt>patch files</tt>" with the source
     code for the purpose of modifying the program at build
     time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of
     software built from modified source code. The license may
     require derived works to carry a different name or version
     number from the original software.  (<em>This is a
     compromise. The Debian group encourages all authors not to
     restrict any files, source or binary, from being
     modified.</em>)</p>
   <li><p><strong>No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups</strong>
     <p>The license must not discriminate against any person or
     group of persons.</p>
   <li><p><strong>No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor</strong>
     <p>The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
     program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may
     not restrict the program from being used in a business, or
     from being used for genetic research.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Distribution of License</strong>
     <p>The rights attached to the program must apply to all to
     whom the program is redistributed without the need for
     execution of an additional license by those
     parties.</p>
   <li><p><strong>License Must Not Be Specific to Debian</strong>
     <p>The rights attached to the program must not depend on the
     program's being part of a Debian system. If the program is
     extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian
     but otherwise within the terms of the program's license, all
     parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the
     same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with
     the Debian system.</p>
   <li><p><strong>License Must Not Contaminate Other Software</strong>
     <p>The license must not place restrictions on other software
     that is distributed along with the licensed
     software. For example, the license must not insist that all
     other programs distributed on the same medium must be free
     software.</p>
   <li><p><strong>Example Licenses</strong>
     <p>The "<strong><a href="https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GPL</a></strong>",
     "<strong><a href="https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause">BSD</a></strong>", and
     "<strong><a href="https://perldoc.perl.org/perlartistic.html">Artistic</a></strong>"
     licenses are examples of licenses that we consider "<em>free</em>".
</ol>

<p><em>The concept of stating our "social contract with the free
software community" was suggested by Ean Schuessler. This document
was drafted by Bruce Perens, refined by the other Debian developers
during a month-long e-mail conference in June 1997, and then
<a href="https://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/debian-announce-1997/msg00017.html">\
accepted</a> as the publicly stated policy of the Debian Project.</em></p>

<p><em>Bruce Perens later removed the Debian-specific references from the
Debian Free Software Guidelines to create
<a href="https://opensource.org/docs/definition.php">&ldquo;The Open
Source Definition&rdquo;</a>.</em></p>

<p><em>Other organizations may derive from and build on this document.
Please give credit to the Debian project if you do.</em>
