Disclaimer: I am not a DD, nor in the n-m queue. I'm also re-crossposting to debian-devel, because I don't think this discussion could usefully be had on debian-legal -- and it's not a licensing issue anyway.
Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes: > I don't believe that saying someone isn't a developer is contemptuous. > It's very easy to fall under the misapprehension that the views of > some participants on debian-legal represent the views of the Debian > project as a whole, This statement could, of course, be generalized to refer to any mailing list and any group of participants, and it would still be just as true. If this is a particular problem for d-l it's because people often ask d-l for a definitive judgement on a license, and the list is simply not set up to deliver on that request. There have been a few attempts (summaries, for example), but they never worked well. > however, and particularly when that applies to > individuals who aren't members of the Debian project, that does a > serious disservice to people who are. I'm not sure I understand this part, though. Do you think that folks like myself, who are not DD's, should not participate in the discussions on d-l? Do you think that those of us who are not DD's should put a disclaimer (IANADD) on every message to the list? I can tell you from experience that the latter gets pretty distracting after a while. This is a serious question, btw, because you're pointing to what you evidently consider to be a serious problem, yet you're not suggesting a solution. For whatever reason, this issue seems to be a particular problem for d-l. Every so often someone claims that the results of discussions on d-l aren't valid because d-l is populated by a bunch of non-DD's, or tries to discount someone's argument because that person isn't a DD. Mostly I write that off as sour grapes over being on the losing side of an argument. But when it comes from a duly elected official in the Debian organization, I have to take a step back and wonder what the problem is. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that most DD's, despite occasionally having strong opinions on licensing ("*This* license is _free_, @#$^!") are totally uninterested in taking the time to sort through the nitpicking arguments about language, jurisdiction, and law, etc., that are needed to make a decision on a particular license or work. That leaves a vacuum on d-l, where such discussions are supposed to take place. So that leaves those of us who may not be DD's but (by whatever perversion of character) are actually interested in discussing licenses, and motivated to ensure that the quality of the licensing of Debian software remains as high as that of the software itself. We, naturally enough, have helped to fill that vacuum. Unfortunately, licensing issues tend toward flame wars because, as I mentioned before, people tend to have strong opinions without wanting to take the time to ground those opinions in the facts. These flame-fests lead some people to try to find reasons to discount their opponents, and on d-l that reason is often simply that some of the participants are not DD's. So I don't think this problem is going away, nor do I think it's a serious one. After all, if DD's really think licensing issues should be discussed behind closed doors, they're free to pass a GR taking debian-legal private. But if you have a different opinion on the issue, I'd like to hear it. (Note that I am not at all talking about the whole Sun java bit. I personally find it hard to get worked up about non-free software going into non-free. Perhaps legal counsel should have been sought, but that's not my call.) -- Jeremy Hankins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> PGP fingerprint: 748F 4D16 538E 75D6 8333 9E10 D212 B5ED 37D0 0A03 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]