Version 1, 22 August 2017
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
By accepting this item you agree to abide by the terms of AFL. The concise version of AFL states that you shall make every effort to label the item according to AFL and donate it to some other CMU student for free. The receiver of the item must understand that the item is AFL licensed and its implications.
The Andrew Freecyle License is a free, copyleft licence for physical goods.
The license works in the following way:
In an ideal scenario the item remains under AFL once someone decides to donate it under AFL. In this case the capital expenditure burden of the item is born entirely by the seller who originally purchased the item new. All subsequent receivers of the item get it for free.
Since most items are sold on graduation and bought in the freshman year, this shifts the capital expdenditure burden from the incoming freshman to the graduating student. The graduating student having received multiple job offers (hopefully) with huge joining bonuses is expected to be in a lesser need for the money obtained from the sale of items. On the contrary the incoming freshman making the transition to college might find the AFLed items a blessing, with the obligation to repay the favour to some other freshman on graduating. This has been the primary motivation for AFL.
Although freshman and graduating students were used above to illustrate the point of deferred capital expenditure, AFL does not impose any such restriction on the giver and receiver. The giver any be anyone. The receiver must however be a tuition paying student at any university.
The AFL is modeled on GNU GPL. However unlike GPL, AFL is not drafted to be legally binding. We rely on the conscience of the consenting receiver to abide by the terms of AFL.
Every item that is being freecycled with AFL license must have
With the feedback we receive about AFL, we would like to modify AFL and release newer versions to better serve the objectives of AFL. Any person accepting an item with AFL is required to give the item away with a version greater or equal to the received version. We encourage everyone to release the item with the latest version of license available at AndrewFreecycle.org.
Sometimes it might not be possible to abide by the requirements of AFL to label the item and find a suitable receiver. Some situations where we anticipate this is where the person has to leave in a hurry and has no time to label the AFL goods for the next receiver. Although we urge all receivers to plan in advance to dispose of their AFL licensed items according to the terms of the license in unforeseen circumstances we encourage the giver to dispose off the item in the following manners of decreasing preference:
Properly label the item as required by AFL and post it on a public forum like facebook so as to find the most suitable receiver.
Properly lable the item as required by AFL and leave it at the “Giving Wall” or any other appropriate public place in CMU.
Properly lable the item as required by AFL and leave it with someone you can trust to dispose off the good according to AFL.
Leave it with someone you can trust with no labels. The trusted person is treated as a receiver and accepts all terms of AFL.
Leave it with no labels outside your home with a post on https://www.freecycle.org/
Leave it outside your home with no labels or post.
Dump it in the trash bin.
IN NO EVENT SHALL YOU SELL ANY AFLed ITEM FOR MONETARY COMPENSATION
The product will eventually reach its useful end of life with no one willing to accept the item. This situation is automatically handled by leaving it at the “Giving Wall”. Any item unclaimed on the “Giving Wall” for more than 2 weeks is donated. Any other equivalent forum with timely disposal can be used instead. In the event the item has been lying unclaimed outside the house or a public place for some time, it would be better to dispose off the item by recycling. We leave it to the best judgement of the owner to decide if the product is unlikely to find a suitable receiver inspite of best efforts. It is only in such a situation that one should decide to recycle the item.