a2cbc77e4f
The function ‘mkDerivation’ now checks whether the current platform type is included in a package's meta.platform field. If not, it throws an exception: $ nix-build -A linux --argstr system x86_64-darwin error: user-thrown exception: the package ‘linux-3.10.15’ is not supported on ‘x86_64-darwin’ These packages also no longer show up in ‘nix-env -qa’ output. This means, for instance, that the number of packages shown on x86_64-freebsd has dropped from 9268 to 4764. Since meta.platforms was also used to prevent Hydra from building some packages, there now is a new attribute meta.hydraPlatforms listing the platforms on which Hydra should build the package (which defaults to meta.platforms).
295 lines
9.9 KiB
XML
295 lines
9.9 KiB
XML
<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
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xml:id="chap-meta">
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<title>Meta-attributes</title>
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<para>Nix packages can declare <emphasis>meta-attributes</emphasis>
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that contain information about a package such as a description, its
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homepage, its license, and so on. For instance, the GNU Hello package
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has a <varname>meta</varname> declaration like this:
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<programlisting>
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meta = {
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description = "A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting";
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longDescription = ''
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GNU Hello is a program that prints "Hello, world!" when you run it.
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It is fully customizable.
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'';
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homepage = http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/;
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license = "GPLv3+";
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};
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</programlisting>
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</para>
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<para>Meta-attributes are not passed to the builder of the package.
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Thus, a change to a meta-attribute doesn’t trigger a recompilation of
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the package. The value of a meta-attribute must a string.</para>
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<para>The meta-attributes of a package can be queried from the
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command-line using <command>nix-env</command>:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -qa hello --meta --xml
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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
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<items>
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<item attrPath="hello" name="hello-2.3" system="i686-linux">
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<meta name="description" value="A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting" />
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<meta name="homepage" value="http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/" />
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<meta name="license" value="GPLv3+" />
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<meta name="longDescription" value="GNU Hello is a program that prints &quot;Hello, world!&quot; when you run it.&#xA;It is fully customizable.&#xA;" />
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</item>
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</items>
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</screen>
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<command>nix-env</command> knows about the
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<varname>description</varname> field specifically:
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<screen>
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$ nix-env -qa hello --description
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hello-2.3 A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting
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</screen>
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</para>
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<section><title>Standard meta-attributes</title>
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<para>The following meta-attributes have a standard
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interpretation:</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>description</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>A short (one-line) description of the package.
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This is shown by <command>nix-env -q --description</command> and
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also on the Nixpkgs release pages.</para>
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<para>Don’t include a period at the end. Don’t include newline
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characters. Capitalise the first character. For brevity, don’t
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repeat the name of package — just describe what it does.</para>
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<para>Wrong: <literal>"libpng is a library that allows you to decode PNG images."</literal></para>
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<para>Right: <literal>"A library for decoding PNG images"</literal></para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>longDescription</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>An arbitrarily long description of the
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package.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>homepage</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>The package’s homepage. Example:
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<literal>http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/</literal></para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>license</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>The license for the package. See below for the
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allowed values.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>maintainers</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>A list of names and e-mail addresses of the
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maintainers of this Nix expression, e.g. <literal>["Alice
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<alice@example.org>" "Bob <bob@example.com>"]</literal>. If
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you are the maintainer of multiple packages, you may want to add
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yourself to <link
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xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/lib/maintainers.nix"><filename>pkgs/lib/maintainers.nix</filename></link>
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and write something like <literal>[stdenv.lib.maintainers.alice
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stdenv.lib.maintainers.bob]</literal>.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>priority</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>The <emphasis>priority</emphasis> of the package,
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used by <command>nix-env</command> to resolve file name conflicts
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between packages. See the Nix manual page for
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<command>nix-env</command> for details. Example:
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<literal>"10"</literal> (a low-priority
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package).</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>platforms</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>The list of Nix platform types on which the
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package is supported. If this attribute is set, the package will
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refuse to build, and won’t show up in <literal>nix-env
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-qa</literal> output, on any platform not listed
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here. An example is:
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<programlisting>
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meta.platforms = [ "x86_64-linux" "i686-linux" "x86_64-darwin" ];
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</programlisting>
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The set <varname>lib.platforms</varname> defines various common
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lists of platforms types, so it’s more typical to write:
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<programlisting>
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meta.platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.linux ++ stdenv.lib.platforms.darwin;
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</programlisting>
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</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>hydraPlatforms</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>The list of Nix platform types for which the Hydra
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instance at <literal>hydra.nixos.org</literal> should build the
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package. (Hydra is the Nix-based continuous build system.) It
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defaults to the value of <varname>meta.platforms</varname>. Thus,
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the only reason to set <varname>meta.hydraPlatforms</varname> is
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if you want <literal>hydra.nixos.org</literal> to build the
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package on a subset of <varname>meta.platforms</varname>, or not
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at all, e.g.
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<programlisting>
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meta.platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.linux;
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meta.hydraPlatforms = [];
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</programlisting>
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</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>broken</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, the package is
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marked as “broken”, meaning that it won’t show up in
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<literal>nix-env -qa</literal>, and cannot be built or installed.
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Sush packages should be removed from Nixpkgs eventually unless
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they are fixed.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</section>
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<section xml:id="sec-meta-license"><title>Licenses</title>
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<note><para>This is just a first attempt at standardising the license
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attribute.</para></note>
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<para>The <varname>meta.license</varname> attribute must be one of the
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following:
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>GPL</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>GNU General Public License; version not
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specified.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>GPLv2</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>GNU General Public License, version
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2.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>GPLv2+</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>GNU General Public License, version
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2 or higher.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>GPLv3</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>GNU General Public License, version
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3.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>GPLv3+</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>GNU General Public License, version
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3 or higher.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>bsd</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>Catch-all for licenses that are essentially
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similar to <link
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xlink:href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ModifiedBSD">the
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original BSD license with the advertising clause removed</link>,
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i.e. permissive non-copyleft free software licenses. This
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includes the <link
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xlink:href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#X11License">X11
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(“MIT”) License</link>.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>perl5</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>The Perl 5 license (Artistic License, version 1
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and GPL, version 1 or later).</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>free</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>Catch-all for free software licenses not listed
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above.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>free-copyleft</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>Catch-all for free, copyleft software licenses not
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listed above.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>free-non-copyleft</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>Catch-all for free, non-copyleft software licenses
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not listed above.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>unfree-redistributable</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>Unfree package that can be redistributed in binary
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form. That is, it’s legal to redistribute the
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<emphasis>output</emphasis> of the derivation. This means that
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the package can be included in the Nixpkgs
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channel.</para>
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<para>Sometimes proprietary software can only be redistributed
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unmodified. Make sure the builder doesn’t actually modify the
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original binaries; otherwise we’re breaking the license. For
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instance, the NVIDIA X11 drivers can be redistributed unmodified,
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but our builder applies <command>patchelf</command> to make them
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work. Thus, its license is <varname>unfree</varname> and it
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cannot be included in the Nixpkgs channel.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>unfree</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>Unfree package that cannot be redistributed. You
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can build it yourself, but you cannot redistribute the output of
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the derivation. Thus it cannot be included in the Nixpkgs
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channel.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><varname>unfree-redistributable-firmware</varname></term>
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<listitem><para>This package supplies unfree, redistributable
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firmware. This is a separate value from
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<varname>unfree-redistributable</varname> because not everybody
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cares whether firmware is free.</para></listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</para>
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</section>
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</chapter>
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