We cannot avoid this any longer, so let's review the license said to be the Nmap Public Source License v 0.95:
Nmap Public Source License Version 0.95For more information on this license, see https://nmap.org/npsl/0. PreambleThe intent of this license is to establish freedom to share and changethe software regulated by this license under the open source model. Italso includes a Contributor Agreement and disclaims any warranty onCovered Software. Companies wishing to use or incorporate CoveredSoftware within their own products may find that our Nmap OEM product(https://nmap.org/oem/) better suits their needs. Open sourcedevelopers who wish to incorporate parts of Covered Software into freesoftware with conflicting licenses may write Licensor to request awaiver of terms.If the Nmap Project (directly or through one of its commerciallicensing customers) has granted you additional rights to Nmap or NmapOEM, those additional rights take precedence where they conflict withthe terms of this license agreement.This License represents the complete agreement concerning subjectmatter hereof. It contains the license terms themselves, but not thereasoning behind them or detailed explanations. For furtherinformation about this License, see https://nmap.org/npsl/ . That pagemakes a good faith attempt to explain this License, but it does notand can not modify its governing terms in any way.1. Definitions* "Contribution" means any work of authorship, including the original version of the Work and any modifications or additions to that Work or Derivative Works thereof, that is intentionally submitted to Licensor by the copyright owner or by an individual or Legal Entity authorized to submit on behalf of the copyright owner. For the purposes of this definition, "submitted" means any form of electronic, verbal, or written communication sent to the Licensor or its representatives, including but not limited to communication on electronic mailing lists, source code control systems, web sites, and issue tracking systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, the Licensor for the purpose of discussing and improving the Work, but excluding communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise designated in writing by the copyright owner as "Not a Contribution."* "Contributor" means Licensor and any individual or Legal Entity on behalf of whom a Contribution has been received by Licensor and subsequently incorporated within the Work.* "Covered Software" means the work of authorship, whether in Source or Object form, made available under the License, as indicated by a copyright notice that is included in or attached to the work* "Derivative Work" or "Collective Work" means any work, whether in Source or Object form, that is based on (or derived from) the Work and for which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship. It includes software as described in Section 3 of this License.* "Executable" means Covered Software in any form other than Source Code.* "Externally Deploy" means to Deploy the Covered Software in any way that may be accessed or used by anyone other than You, used to provide any services to anyone other than You, or used in any way to deliver any content to anyone other than You, whether the Covered Software is distributed to those parties, made available as an application intended for use over a computer network, or used to provide services or otherwise deliver content to anyone other than You.* "GPL" means the GNU General Public License Version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation and provided in Exhibit A.* "Legal Entity" means the union of the acting entity and all other entities that control, are controlled by, or are under common control with that entity. For the purposes of this definition, "control" means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (ii) ownership of fifty percent (50%) or more of the outstanding shares, or (iii) beneficial ownership of such entity.* "License" means this document, including Exhibits.* "Licensor" means Nmap Software LLC and its successors and assigns.* "Main License Body" means all of the terms of this document, excluding Exhibits.* "You" (or "Your") means an individual or Legal Entity exercising permissions granted by this License.2. General TermsCovered Software is licensed to you under the terms of the GPL(Exhibit A), with all the exceptions, clarifications, and additionsnoted in this Main License Body. Where the terms in this Main LicenseBody conflict in any way with the GPL, the Main License Body termsshall take precedence. These additional terms mean that You may notdistribute Covered Software or Derivative Works under plain GPL termswithout special permission from Licensor.You are not required to accept this License. However, nothing elsegrants You permission to use, copy, modify or distribute the softwareor its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if You donot accept this License. Therefore, by modifying, copying ordistributing the software (or any work based on the software), Youindicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its termsand conditions. In addition, you agree to the terms of this License byclicking the Accept button or downloading the software.3. Derivative WorksThis License (including the GPL portion) places important restrictionson derived works. Licensor interprets that term quite broadly. Toavoid any misunderstandings, we consider software to constitute a"derivative work" of Covered Software for the purposes of this licenseif it does any of the following:* Integrates source code from Covered Software* Reads or includes Covered Software data files, such as nmap-os-db or nmap-service-probes.* Is designed specifically to execute Covered Software and parse the results (as opposed to typical shell or execution-menu apps, which will execute anything you tell them to).* Includes Covered Software in a proprietary executable installer. The installers produced by InstallShield are an example of this. Including Nmap with other software in compressed or archival form does not trigger this provision, provided appropriate open source decompression or de-archiving software is widely available for no charge. For the purposes of this license, an installer is considered to include Covered Software even if it actually retrieves a copy of Covered Software from another source during runtime (such as by downloading it from the Internet).* Links (statically or dynamically) to a library which does any of the above* Executes a helper program, module, or script to do any of the above.This list is not exclusive, but is meant to clarify Licensor'sintentions with some common examples. Distribution of any works whichmeet these criteria (and that also choose to accept this license tobenefit from the rights granted herein) must be under the terms ofthis license (including this Main License Body and GPL), with noadditional conditions or restrictions. They must abide by allrestrictions that the GPL places on derivative or collective works,including the requirements for distributing their source code andallowing royalty-free redistribution.Licensor does not purport to control through this license any softwarewhich does not require the rights granted herein (such as rights toredistribute and/or incorporate Covered Software executables andsource code). In particular, many software packages include theability to parse Covered Software results provided by an end user orto execute Covered Software that end user may have already installedon their system. To the extent that copyright doctrines such as fairuse allow their practices without the need to exercise any rightsgranted by this license, vendors and distributors of such software arenot bound by our definition of derivative works or any other clausesin this license.4. Contributor Agreement (Grant of Copyright and Patent Licenses)Each Contributor hereby grants to Licensor a perpetual, worldwide,non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright licenseto reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly display, publiclyperform, sublicense, and distribute the Contribution and suchDerivative Works in Source or Object form.Each Contributor hereby grants to You and Licensor a perpetual,worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (exceptas stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use,offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, wheresuch license applies only to those patent claims licensable by suchContributor that are necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s)alone or by combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work towhich such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patentlitigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaimin a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution incorporatedwithin the Work constitutes direct or contributory patentinfringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under thisLicense for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigationis filed.Contributors may impose different terms on their Contributions bystating those terms in writing at the time the Contribution ismade. Contributors may withhold all authority from Licensor toincorporate submissions by conspicuously marking or otherwisedesignating them in writing as "Not a Contribution" at the time theymake the work available.5. Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of LiabilityUnless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, Licensorprovides the Covered Software (and each Contributor provides itsContributions) on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONSOF ANY KIND, either express or implied, including, without limitation,any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT,MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solelyresponsible for determining the appropriateness of using orredistributing the Covered Software and assume any risks associatedwith Your exercise of permissions under this License.In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (includingnegligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law(such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to inwriting, shall any Contributor be liable to You for damages, includingany direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages ofany character arising as a result of this License or out of the use orinability to use the Covered Software (including but not limited todamages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure ormalfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), evenif such Contributor has been advised of the possibility of suchdamages.6. External DeploymentIf You Externally Deploy Covered Software, such as hosting a websitedesigned to execute Nmap scans for users, the system and itsdocumentation must, if technically feasible, prominently display anotice stating that the system uses the Nmap Security Scanner toperform its tasks. If technically feasible, the notice must contain ahyperlink to https://nmap.org/ or provide that URL in the text.7. TrademarksThis License does not grant permission to use the trade names,trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except asrequired for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin ofthe Covered Software.8. Termination for Patent ActionThis License shall terminate automatically and You may no longerexercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of thedate You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim,against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Covered Softwareinfringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for anaction alleging patent infringement by combinations of the CoveredSoftware with other software or hardware.9. Jurisdiction, Venue and Governing LawThis License is governed by the laws of the State of Washington andthe intellectual property laws of the United States of America,excluding the jurisdiction's conflict-of-law provisions. Anylitigation or other dispute resolution between You and Licensorrelating to this License shall take place in the Northern District ofCalifornia, and You and Licensor hereby consent to the personaljurisdiction of, and venue in, the state and federal courts withinthat District with respect to this License. The application of theUnited Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale ofGoods is expressly excluded.10. Npcap and the Official Nmap Windows BuildsThe official Windows Nmap builds includes the Npcap driver and library(https://npcap.com) for packet capture and transmission onWindows. That software is under its own separate license terms ratherthan this license. Therefore anyone wishing to use or redistributeboth pieces of software must comply with both licenses. Since Npcapdoes not allow for redistribution without special permission, theofficial Nmap Windows builds which include Npcap may not beredistributed without special permission. Such permission can berequested by email to sales@nmap.com.11. Permission to link with OpenSSLLicensor grants permission to link Covered Software with any versionof the OpenSSL library from OpenSSL.Org, and distribute linkedcombinations including the two (assuming such distribution isotherwise allowed by this agreement). You must obey this License inall respects for all code used other than OpenSSL.12. Waiver; ConstructionFailure by Licensor or any Contributor to enforce any provision ofthis License will not be deemed a waiver of future enforcement of thator any other provision. Any law or regulation which provides that thelanguage of a contract shall be construed against the drafter will notapply to this License.13. EnforceabilityIf any provision of this License is invalid or unenforceable underapplicable law, it shall not affect the validity or enforceability ofthe remainder of the terms of this License, and without further actionby the parties hereto, such provision shall be reformed to the minimumextent necessary to make such provision valid and enforceable.Exhibit A. The GNU General Public License Version 2GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSEVersion 2, June 1991Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USAEveryone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copiesof this license document, but changing it is not allowed.PreambleThe licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedomto share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License isintended to guarantee your freedom to share and change freesoftware--to make sure the software is free for all its users. ThisGeneral Public License applies to most of the Free SoftwareFoundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit tousing it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered bythe GNU Lesser General Public License instead.) You can apply it toyour programs, too.When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, notprice. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that youhave the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge forthis service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get itif you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of itin new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbidanyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender therights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities foryou if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whethergratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights thatyou have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get thesource code. And you must show them these terms so they know theirrights.We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and(2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,distribute and/or modify the software.Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certainthat everyone understands that there is no warranty for this freesoftware. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on,we want its recipients to know that what they have is not theoriginal, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflecton the original authors' reputations.Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by softwarepatents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a freeprogram will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making theprogram proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that anypatent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed atall.The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution andmodification follow.TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains anotice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributedunder the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into anotherlanguage. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation inthe term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are notcovered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act ofrunning the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Programis covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program(independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether thatis true depends on what the Program does.1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's sourcecode as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuouslyand appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright noticeand disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer tothis License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any otherrecipients of the Program a copy of this License along with theProgram.You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, andyou may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for afee.2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion ofit, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distributesuch modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above,provided that you also meet all of these conditions:a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent noticesstating that you changed the files and the date of any change.b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that inwhole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any partthereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third partiesunder the terms of this License.c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively whenrun, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive usein the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcementincluding an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there isno warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and thatusers may redistribute the program under these conditions, and tellingthe user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if theProgram itself is interactive but does not normally print such anannouncement, your work based on the Program is not required to printan announcement.)These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. Ifidentifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works inthemselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to thosesections when you distribute them as separate works. But when youdistribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work basedon the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms ofthis License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to theentire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wroteit.Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contestyour rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is toexercise the right to control the distribution of derivative orcollective works based on the Program.In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Programwith the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume ofa storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work underthe scope of this License.3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms ofSections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readablesource code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years,to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost ofphysically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readablecopy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under theterms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used forsoftware interchange; or,c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer todistribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowedonly for noncommercial distribution and only if you received theprogram in object code or executable form with such an offer, inaccord with Subsection b above.)The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work formaking modifications to it. For an executable work, complete sourcecode means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus anyassociated interface definition files, plus the scripts used tocontrol compilation and installation of the executable. However, as aspecial exception, the source code distributed need not includeanything that is normally distributed (in either source or binaryform) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of theoperating system on which the executable runs, unless that componentitself accompanies the executable.If distribution of executable or object code is made by offeringaccess to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalentaccess to copy the source code from the same place counts asdistribution of the source code, even though third parties are notcompelled to copy the source along with the object code.4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Programexcept as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwiseto copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, andwill automatically terminate your rights under this License. However,parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under thisLicense will not have their licenses terminated so long as suchparties remain in full compliance.5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have notsigned it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify ordistribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions areprohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, bymodifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on theProgram), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, andall its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifyingthe Program or works based on it.6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on theProgram), the recipient automatically receives a license from theoriginal licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject tothese terms and conditions. You may not impose any furtherrestrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights grantedherein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by thirdparties to this License.7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patentinfringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement orotherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do notexcuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannotdistribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under thisLicense and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence youmay not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patentlicense would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program byall those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, thenthe only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be torefrain entirely from distribution of the Program.If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable underany particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended toapply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in othercircumstances.It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe anypatents or other property right claims or to contest validity of anysuch claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting theintegrity of the free software distribution system, which isimplemented by public license practices. Many people have madegenerous contributions to the wide range of software distributedthrough that system in reliance on consistent application of thatsystem; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willingto distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannotimpose that choice.This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed tobe a consequence of the rest of this License.8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted incertain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, theoriginal copyright holder who places the Program under this Licensemay add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excludingthose countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or amongcountries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporatesthe limitation as if written in the body of this License.9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or newversions of the General Public License from time to time. Such newversions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but maydiffer in detail to address new problems or concerns.Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Programspecifies a version number of this License which applies to it and"any later version", you have the option of following the terms andconditions either of that version or of any later version published bythe Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify aversion number of this License, you may choose any version everpublished by the Free Software Foundation.10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other freeprograms whose distribution conditions are different, write to theauthor to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by theFree Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; wesometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by thetwo goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our freesoftware and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.NO WARRANTY11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NOWARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLELAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERSAND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OFANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULARPURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THEPROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUMETHE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO INWRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFYAND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOUFOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL ORCONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THEPROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEINGRENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR AFAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IFSUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCHDAMAGES.END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS[For brevity, we've cut out the GPL's final section on "How to ApplyThese Terms to Your New Program", but you can find that athttps://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html#SEC4 ]
We first need to look at the way this license uses "External Deployment":
If You Externally Deploy Covered Software, such as hosting a websitedesigned to execute Nmap scans for users, the system and itsdocumentation must, if technically feasible, prominently display anotice stating that the system uses the Nmap Security Scanner toperform its tasks. If technically feasible, the notice must contain ahyperlink to https://nmap.org/ or provide that URL in the text.
The definition of "Externally Deploy":
"Externally Deploy" means to Deploy the Covered Software in any way that may be accessed or used by anyone other than You, used to provide any services to anyone other than You, or used in any way to deliver any content to anyone other than You, whether the Covered Software is distributed to those parties, made available as an application intended for use over a computer network, or used to provide services or otherwise deliver content to anyone other than You.
I note that "Deploy" is not defined despite beginning with a capital D.
A few now-old OSI-approved licenses used an "External Deployment" term in an attempt to implement a sort of proto-AGPL-ish policy: OSL 3.0, APSL 2.0 (and possibly their predecessors, I haven't checked) and the RealNetworks Public Source License v1.0. The definition in NPSL 0.95 is essentially identical to that in the RPSL 1.0 (while the definitions in the OSL and APSL are fairly different). RPSL-1.0 is allowed in Fedora. Based on my possibly faulty recollection, it was originally included as a license of unknown status because it happened to be OSI-approved (i.e., I think it may be one of those licenses that never actually covered anything in a Fedora package). Around 2008 or 2009 I remember going through a bunch of these licenses and determining that some of them were "good" and some were "bad".
More to the point, here's how RPSL 1.0 uses the External Deployment term:
d) You must make Source Code of all Your Externally Deployed Modifications publicly available under the terms of this License, including the license grants set forth in Section 3 below, for as long as you Deploy the Covered Code or twelve (12) months from the date of initial Deployment, whichever is longer. You should preferably distribute the Source Code of Your Deployed Modifications electronically (e.g. download from a web site);
4.1 You must cause any Derivative Work that you distribute, publish or Externally Deploy, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Covered Code or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License and no other license except as provided in Section 4.2. You also must make Source Code available for the Derivative Work under the same terms as Modifications, described in Sections 2 and 3, above.
To be clear, the above has nothing to do with the use of "Externally Deploy" in NPSL 0.95. But it's useful to try to understand why RPSL 1.0 was seen as "good" by Fedora in the past.
The main issue is with the definition itself. To the extent that RPSL 1.0 was reviewed closely by Fedora in the past, and that may have included review by me in the 2008/2009 timeframe, I am sure that the definition was viewed with a sort of AGPL-oriented lens, perhaps appropriately.
In RPSL 1.0 "Deploy" is defined, unlike NPSL 0.95:
"“Deploy” means to use, sublicense or distribute Covered Code other than for Your internal research and development (R&D) and/or Personal Use, and includes without limitation, any and all internal use or distribution of Covered Code within Your business or organization except for R&D use and/or Personal Use, as well as direct or indirect sublicensing or distribution of Covered Code by You to any third party in any form or manner."
"Personal Use" for good measure is defined in RPSL 1.0:
“Personal Use” means use of Covered Code by an individual solely for his or her personal, private and non-commercial purposes. An individual’s use of Covered Code in his or her capacity as an officer, employee, member, independent contractor or agent of a corporation, business or organization (commercial or non-commercial) does not qualify as Personal Use.
Given the breadth of "Externally Deploy" in RPSL, and in particular its apparent reach to all conceivable forms of services, I am left wondering whether RPSL-1.0 was correctly determined to be "good". But we can leave that concern aside since, while NPSL 0.95's definition of course has the same breadth or worse (given the absence of the carveouts in the RPSL definition via the "Deploy" definition which is missing from NPSL 0.95), it only practically arises in this situation:
If You Externally Deploy Covered Software, such as hosting a websitedesigned to execute Nmap scans for users, the system and itsdocumentation must, if technically feasible, prominently display anotice stating that the system uses the Nmap Security Scanner toperform its tasks. If technically feasible, the notice must contain ahyperlink to https://nmap.org/ or provide that URL in the text.
This assumes that there is a "system" that can display such a notice, which (reading it as charitably as possible) probably narrows the scope of the provision to a SaaS context, as in the given example of hosting a website that executes Nmap scans.
If we limit the reading of the External Deployment section accordingly, the issue this then raises is whether this is an impermissible "badgeware" provision. In general Fedora (influenced by the work of Pamela Chestek) has progressed over time towards decreasing tolerance of badgeware provisions. A particular concern with badgeware is that it can seem to operate to force derivative works to use the branding of the original licensor's version. Here, the provision speaks of "Externally Deploy[ing] Covered Software". "Covered Software" is defined:
the work of authorship, whether in Source or Object form, made available under the License, as indicated by a copyright notice that is included in or attached to the work
Well, that just means the original version of the software that was licensed to you. But in the context of this External Deployment provision, I don't see why this wouldn't be read as extending to modified versions that retain substantial portions of the original (we'll get to NPSL 0.95's treatment of "derivative works" in a later comment). Therefore, this seems to be an impermissible badgeware provision and should be classified as not-allowed for that reason alone.
To be clear about what I see as the problem: Suppose I substantially modify Nmap, but not so much that I don't need a license from the Nmap licensor for my version. My version may be quite different from Nmap in various ways. It may even have functionality that is entirely unrelated to the main functionality provided by Nmap. But if I provide a website that makes my derivative's functionality available to users, I have to display a prominent notice saying, falsely, "This system uses Nmap Security Scanner to perform its tasks - https://nmap.org/".
The second main issue with NPSL 0.95 has to do with its treatment of derivative works. It should be understood that this version of the NPSL is an overlay on top of GPLv2, the text of which is appended to the license. NPSL 0.95 is actually reasonably clear on what is going on here at some level:
Covered Software is licensed to you under the terms of the GPL(Exhibit A), with all the exceptions, clarifications, and additionsnoted in this Main License Body. Where the terms in this Main LicenseBody conflict in any way with the GPL, the Main License Body termsshall take precedence. These additional terms mean that You may notdistribute Covered Software or Derivative Works under plain GPL termswithout special permission from Licensor.
It is important to note that GPLv2 uses the term "derivative work", making reference to its being a defined term under (US, though this is unstated) copyright law, but arguably attempts to redefine it ("any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language").
NPSL 0.95 defines "Derivative Work" (note the capitalization):
"Derivative Work" or "Collective Work" means any work, whether in Source or Object form, that is based on (or derived from) the Work and for which the editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship. It includes software as described in Section 3 of this License.
This resembles the definition of "Derivative Work" found in the Apache Licnse 2.0 and is ultimately derived from the final sentence of the definition of "derivative work" in 17 USC 101:
A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.
There is no problem there until we get to section 3, which effectively redefines "Derivative Work" beyond this statutory definition:
3. Derivative WorksThis License (including the GPL portion) places important restrictionson derived works. Licensor interprets that term quite broadly. Toavoid any misunderstandings, we consider software to constitute a"derivative work" of Covered Software for the purposes of this licenseif it does any of the following:* Integrates source code from Covered Software* Reads or includes Covered Software data files, such as nmap-os-db or nmap-service-probes.* Is designed specifically to execute Covered Software and parse the results (as opposed to typical shell or execution-menu apps, which will execute anything you tell them to).* Includes Covered Software in a proprietary executable installer. The installers produced by InstallShield are an example of this. Including Nmap with other software in compressed or archival form does not trigger this provision, provided appropriate open source decompression or de-archiving software is widely available for no charge. For the purposes of this license, an installer is considered to include Covered Software even if it actually retrieves a copy of Covered Software from another source during runtime (such as by downloading it from the Internet).* Links (statically or dynamically) to a library which does any of the above* Executes a helper program, module, or script to do any of the above.
To be clear, the mere fact that "derivative work" is redefined is not the problem; arguably GPLv2 does this, for example. But some of the specific redefinitions in this section go too far:
Reads or includes Covered Software data files, such as nmap-os-db or
nmap-service-probes.
I don't see how it can be acceptable to apply the NPSL 0.95/GPLv2 conditions concerning derivative works to software that merely "reads ... Covered Software data files". I can't think of any license considered libre that does this. Some of the other redefinitions may be similarly problematic but this one quite clearly is.