Package: debian-policy Version: 3.6.2.1 Severity: serious Justification: ..long term litigation hazard.
...subject 'n justification 'n bug#317359 tells the story, further discussion can be found on Groklaw and likely d-legal too, the GPL is a license because it gives a permission to do something, such as distribution, on a certain condition, "also distribute the source." ...no agreement, "just act on it or Face the Wrath of Copyright Law." ...Microsoft et al likes to confuse the legal issues by calling the sales or renting contracts for their binaries, "End User License Agreement". That very "Ok"-click agreement, makes it a contract. ....contracts too can be enforced in court, "because we agreed." ....their long term strategic reason is profit from litigation etc when they fail to compete on their own merits. ...to succeed in such litigation, license and "license agreement" confusion is needed, both in the media, in courts and, in the general public, the members of the legislature and the juries are drawn from there. ....unless we agree with Microsoft that the GPL is a contract, we should clarify our position and policy as above, for the KDE guys, it's `just remove "Agreement" from those tabs, and leave "License" on them tabs', for other maintainers, there will be similar such wee oversights to fix, and one such wee oversight is very reason I file this bug. ;o) ...please add relevant advice on "the GPL etc as licenses or contracts under Debian Policy" to sections 2.1 and 12.5 of the Debian Policy Manual. -- System Information: Debian Release: testing/unstable APT prefers testing APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental') Architecture: i386 (i586) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Kernel: Linux 2.6.10-1-386 Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]