Permission to link should allow commercial purposes and images

[mattflaschen]

https://github.com/appdotnet/terms-of-service/blob/master/terms.md#hyperlinks-and-third-party-content says, "You may create a text hyperlink to the Service for noncommercial purposes."

It is controversial and jurisdiction-dependent whether permission is required to link. See http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter6/6-c.html#1 and http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/06/53355 .

If you want to explicitly grant permission (perhaps because of the few jurisdictions Stanford mentions that may require it), there should not be a noncommercial qualifier.

It is neither acceptable nor desirable to block linking by most search engines, most newspapers, and a large segment of blogs. All of those are commercial, and linking is part of their commercial purpose (information finding and dissemination)

[JoshBlake]

I don't think it is even valid to suggest that hyperlinks can be categorized into commercial or non-commercial purposes. A hyperlink is just a hyperlink. Commercial activity requires an evaluation on a much higher level.

For example, it would not make sense to say "you may not breath the air in this room for commercial purposes". Breathing is breathing. Maybe you're doing an activity that is commercial in nature (sales call) which requires the utility of your body and your body needs to breath, but evaluating breathing is the wrong level of abstraction.

Another example would be limiting the use of a specific road to only non-commercial traffic. There's so much gray area that it's impossible. Maybe I'm driving on the road in order go to a store to pick up supplies for my bakery and buy flowers from the shop next door for my mother.

@mattflaschen Agree with explicit permission for legal reasons but without a modifier.

[mattflaschen]

Also, image hyperlinks to app.net should be allowed as long as the anchor image does not infringe an app.net copyright or trademark. As is "text hyperlink" is overly limiting.