On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 07:35:43PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes: > > Then why do you want them put in some special "debian-political" package > > which other packages aren't allowed to recommend? > I didn't say I wanted that. I tossed it out as a wacky suggestion,
Actually you said it was a "clever idea". It wasn't particularly clear that you didn't want it taken seriously, and I'm not sure how else you'd like it taken. On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 07:42:34PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes: > > Well, not to be as pedantic as Branden often is, but I never said it was > > "just as easy to get", I said it was "still trivial to get". And it is: > > you add one line, or even one word, to /etc/apt/sources.list and then > > do what you would've if it was in main. > Well, only for people on the net. Or for people who have a CD vendor who's willing to look at the licenses of non-free software and distribute what package s/he can. There used to be some of these around, dunno if there still are. > > If you think the emacs manual is free, and you want Debian to think > > so too, you should actually rebutt some of the "peripheral issues" > > people bring up which are convincing them that the emacs manual *isn't* > > free enough. > I never said those were peripheral issues. I think you're > concentrating on rhetoric here. "When I elide things, it's usually because I've thought them to be peripheral", was what you said. > What is the important value of free software? If it's absolutely > untrammeled ability to modify *everything*, then there is *NO* free > software in Debian now. (Or perhaps there are a couple insignificant > public domain things.) So, exactly which value of free software is > violated by having such sections? Why are you continuing to argue against positions no one's taken? No. One. Is. Disputing. That. Licenses. Need. Not. Be. Able. To. Be. Modified. > > > One thing that is important to recognize is that the position > > > "absolutely no invariant text in main of any kind" is not tenable at > > > all, > > Why do you think that? > > No one's questioning that licenses must be allowed to remain invariant, > > and likewise trivial addenda like copyright notices and stuff like that. > Exactly. That's why it's not tenable. When I say "X is not at all > tenable", and you say "nobody questions that X is sometimes wrong", we > are agreeing, not disagreeing. Why are you wasting our time even saying it? > Now, exactly which section of the DSFG allows exceptions for license > texts and copyright notices? For that matter, why are you wasting our time saying this? It's been examined a bunch of times. > So those who want to exclude the emacs manual from main should > articulate exactly what standard they apply to determine which > invariant texts *are* allowed, and which are not. See my suggestion about debian-doc earlier. Or see other people's reasoning that "it's not license text, therefore it's not appropriate". This has been discussed, even in messages you've replied to. If you're interested in them, go back, read them, and reply to them without just skipping either the suggested solutions or the arguments as to why they make sense. On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 07:44:02PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Oh, and please CC me directly on all further posts. Set your Mail-Followup-To header and I'll behappy to. Cheers, aj -- Anthony Towns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/> I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred. "Security here. Yes, maam. Yes. Groucho glasses. Yes, we're on it. C'mon, guys. Somebody gave an aardvark a nose-cut: somebody who can't deal with deconstructionist humor. Code Blue." -- Mike Hoye, see http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/armadillos.txt
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