On Tue, 6 Jul 2004 18:31:34 -0400, David Nusinow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Jul 06, 2004 at 08:43:06PM +0000, Thaddeus H. Black wrote: > > > Some companies feel that various licenses were > > > genuine efforts to be DFSG free ... > > > > Maybe some companies should genuinely stop > > trying to invent new free licenses. Still, if > > > > (a) they feel that they absolutely must have > > their own private buggy licenses, yet > > > > (b) they sneer at debian-legal, where the best > > expert advice in the world on this topic is > > freely available to them, > > > > then how much more can we can do to help them? > > If they want to play the game, they need to > > learn the rules first. I do not seem to have > > any trouble producing DFSG-compliant software, > > after all, and neither do you. Why should they? > > Because they have lawyers? > > > > Debian is a shining beacon. In the end, they > > will follow us. To a remarkable extent, whether > > they realize it or not, they already do.
[none of the above snipped, because I can't find a single shining example of arrogance among it -- the whole thing is arrogant, in my opinion] > > This smacks of arrogance. Most -legal participants aren't lawyers, and as such > have no formal training in actual legal matters. Believe it or not, such > training does count for something. The point should be to cooperate with these > people and have actual discussions, not beat them about the head and shoulders > with ideology that they probably don't understand. This is the sort of thing > that Matthew is reporting about, and it's also the reason for the recent > backlash against -legal from within Debian itself. You said that better than I would have, if I had fallen to my temptation to reply to Thaddeus. I agree 100%, and with perhaps more emotion. I do have a question.... on an individual package-by-package basis, who does have final say as to whether or not it follows the DFSG? The developer who packages it? The Release Manager? Upstream? > > - David Nusinow
