On Sat, Feb 11, 2006 at 01:46:14PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > This belongs somewhere else. Directing followups to -project. > > Glenn Maynard wrote: > > On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 02:31:43AM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > > > Incidentally, if I ever become a DD, I will immediately propose a GR to > > > amend the Social Contract to explicitly allow unmodifiable license texts > in > > > Debian, since it technically doesn't, but everyone agrees that it > should. > > > I'd welcome someone else beating me to it. > > > > Then people will start saying things like "the GFDL is free, if the > invariant > > sections happen to be license texts!" > Not if we do it my way: see below. > > <snip> > > [1] As an extra-aside, see > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/04/msg02344.html for an > observation > > about the difference between "license texts" and "license terms", > > and how one really could apply the DFSG to texts, but not terms, > > and end up with something > > reasonable. Not really a worthy fight, of course, but if you want to > > formalize an exception, then I think knowing the difference is important. > > Trust me, I know the difference; I'm one of the people who originally > described the difference and explained how it mattered to the people > drafting the Apache license version 2. The problem is quite specifically > that we have unmodifiable license texts, not unmodifiable license terms. > These texts are in Debian, making it technically untrue that "Debian will > remain 100% free." > > This is approximately how I would write an exception: > > "Debian will remain 100% free. (With one exception for license texts, > noted below.) ...." > > "Works in Debian are usually made available under specific licenses. For > convenience, we include these (and only these) licenses directly in the > Debian system, and we do not require that the texts of these licenses be > Free. However, we promise that all such non-free legal texts will be placed > in a few specific, well-documented locations, and nowhere else in the > Debian system." > > This could probably be improved, but it gets the point across very clearly.
An interesting question is whether Debian will or should be admitting new non-free texts. Regards, Paddy -- Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]