[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Marco d'Itri) writes: > On Nov 17, "Brian M. Carlson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > I'd say that it's not obvious at all how removing crucial documentation >> > because some people do not like its license will help the distribution >> > and/or the cause of free software. >> I don't like a lot of licenses, specifically those that are confusing >> and long and contain an "Exhibit A", because they are hard to read and >> understand. But that does not make them *non-free*. What I have a >> specific objection to in this case is the fact that the license is >> non-free, not that it is long, or confusing. You are using a strawman >> example by distorting my position. > No, you missed the point. The point is that it's not important what > position you hold, but that whatever your position (or mine) is, it's > not the criteria that developers should use to determine if they need > to remove something from the distribution.
The position that matters is that of the ftpmasters, and they usually delegate to debian-legal. Now however much you may or may not like debian-legal, they are usually the ones that decide this. >> What will help the cause of free software is if we refuse to >> compromise on freedom within the Debian distribution. That is, in my > The DFSG has always been a compromise, see clause 4. It was needed to > get TeX in debian, or most people in the free software community would > have considered the project a joke, like it's quickly approaching to be. > And every license is a compromise on the spectrum of different liberties > which can be granted or not granted to different entities, it's not > obvious at all that the specific set of compromises made by the GFDL are > unacceptable. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. >> opinion, the best thing for the users and for the distribution. And >> furthermore, in my bugs, I am offering a possibility to move the >> documentation to non-free. That may be removing it from the >> distribution, but it will still exist and be apt-get'able. > I understand you want to become a developer. Then you should know that > non-free is not part of Debian. Whatever gave you that idea? I have not once said in this thread (or in any other, AFAIK) that I wanted to be a Debian Developer. Maybe someone said something on -private, I don't know. Now, the reality is that I would, *maybe* sometime in the future. But it is not an urgent desire by any stretch of the imagination, or I would have already filed an NM application. Also, I have known that non-free is not part of Debian for almost as long as I have known about Debian; Graham Wilson converted me from Red Hat and taught me what I needed to know about Debian.