Rather than attempt to list all the freedoms that Debian guarantees, why not list the *restrictions* on freedom that we do allow, and say that any other restrictions violate our guidelines.
IOW, instead of saying, "we allow this, we forbid this, we allow this...", simply say, "we forbid all restrictions except these...." No need to mention, e.g., discrimination; if it's not a listed restriction, it's an unacceptable restriction. A preliminary outline of acceptable restrictions: 1. Credit where credit is due. (copyright notices, etc.) 2. Continued freedom ((L)GPL, MPL, QPL, etc.). 3. Identity (artistic) 4. "Non-contaminating" non-commercialism (artistic) 5. Integrity ("patch-clause" -- deprecated) These obviously need to be fleshed out and pinned down a little. Number one needs to be chopped off somewhere around (either including or excluding) the terms of the BSD license. And we can drop the patch clause if desired. But I think this approach of listing acceptable restrictions on our freedoms is probably the most clear. I think it might help make the DFSG brief and to-the-point. Comments? -- Chris Waters [EMAIL PROTECTED] | I have a truly elegant proof of the or [EMAIL PROTECTED] | above, but it is too long to fit into http://www.dsp.net/xtifr | this .signature file.