Aladdin Free Public License

Not to be confused with the AGPL (GNU Affero General Public License) used for later versions of Ghostscript.

The Aladdin Free Public License, abbreviated AFPL, is a license written by L. Peter Deutsch for his Ghostscript PostScript language interpreter.

Aladdin Free Public License

Latest version	9
Publisher	Aladdin Enterprises
Published	September 18, 2000 (2000-09-18)
SPDX identifier	Aladdin
Debian FSG compatible	No
FSF approved	No[1]
OSI approved	No
GPL compatible	No

History

The license was derived from the GNU General Public License, but differs on two key points:

• The source code must be included with any software distribution.
• The software may not be sold, including any fees involved with distribution.

Deutsch chose to include a commercial restriction in the AFPL based on his observation of people including Ghostscript in commercial products without full license compliance.^[2] Recent versions of Ghostscript are not licensed under the AFPL.^[3]

Despite the name, the Free Software Foundation does not consider the AFPL a free software license,^[1] neither the OSI consider it an open-source license, nor does it fall under the Copyfree Standard definition.^[4] The AFPL can be considered a source-available license.

See also

• Dual-licensing