to, 2008-05-29 kello 20:53 -0400, Kevin Mark kirjoitti: > This talk of the licensing of DEPs is a bit of a confusion.
I suspect you meant to write that sentence as "I am confused by copyright license requirements for DEPs, could someone please clarify?". I will answer accordingly. * DEPs are documents produced by the Debian project. * DEPs are copyrightable works. * DEPs will hopefully be used by Debian in a variety of ways. * Some of those ways require copying parts of DEPs into other documents. * For example, the Policy Manual or Developer's Reference. * Other ways of using DEPs may mean that they should be part of main. * For example, in /usr/share/doc for the affected packages. * Therefore, DEPs must have a copyright license Debian considers free. * Even without the above, Debian cannot morally accept non-free DEPs. * Any copyright license that Debian considers free is good enough. * It's easier if all or most DEPs have the same license. * Thus, it would be nice to recommend one to be used by default. * It is not necessary for all DEPs to have the same license. About patents: * In any sane legal system, patents can only by filed by inventors. * DEP licenses are decided by their authors. * If DEP authors are the inventors, they can file patents anyway. * In many insane legal systems, it doesn't matter who files a patent. * In those systems, it doesn't matter if something is public knowledge. * In those systems, anyone can file patents for anything, any time. * Nothing we say or do can prevent patents from being filed. * Therefore, patents are irrelevant for this discussion. About using DEPs in visual art, in Knoppix, or whatever: * As long as the licenses are obeyed, that is OK. About "Should the DEP business process be restricted by us through a patent?": * No. * Never. * By asking, you prove your confusion. * You really need to learn what freedom is all about. * Please do the learning without excessive posting to Debian lists. On a personal note: * You write a lot of e-mail to development lists. * That takes time. * Fairly little of your e-mail is useful to the project. * It does not harm too much, many people already filter you out. * Please consider spending the time on useful things instead. * For example, write a HOWTO on some topic. * Please use wiki.debian.org for it. * That way others can help improve it. * I apologize if this e-mail sounds harsh. * I tried to avoid aggression, but also to make myself clear. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]