Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
[John: Not only did you ignore my Mail-Followup-To header, to which I drew your attention in the very first line of my reply, but you mailed me a private copy of your message. Please review the Debian Mailing List Code of Conduct. Followups set, AGAIN.] On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 03:34:06PM -0500, John Goerzen wrote: On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 12:06:39PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: The Social Contract[1] says that Debian will remain 100% Free Software, and that the Debian Free Software Guidelines shall be a tool that we use to for determining whether something in the Debian distribution is Free Software or not. Debian Developers have pledged to The corrolary is that 0% of Debian is non-free software. Documentation is not software at all. I see you have not taken my advice to read the archives of debian-legal. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00027.html The Social Contract does not say: Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software and Some Other Things That Aren't Software But Which Are Also Free But Meet a Different Definition Of Free Than That Which Applies to Software, Plus Some Other Stuff That Isn't Free By Any Stretch Of The Imagination But Which We Thought Would Be Nice To Have. The mere fact that the social contract says that 100% of Debian is Free Software does not magically make everything that is part of Debian software. Just saying something is so is begging the question, and I am getting tired of that game. I'm getting tired of the game that interprets: This food product is 100% fat free. as: The stuff that isn't fat in this food product is 100% fat-free, but the non-fat-free stuff might have fat in it. I'm also getting tired of having words put in my mouth. I have at no time (and neither has any other opponent of different standards of freedom for documentation within the Debian Project, to my knowledge), asserted that documentation *IS* software. Please cease these fallacious straw man attacks. I'm also getting tired of you not familiarizing yourself with the voluminous past discussions of this subject. If you take Clause 1 of the Social Contract to literally mean that Debian contains nothing save software that is free, then that clause has never been true since it was introduced, since we have always contained many non-software items (documentation, bibles, Linux Gazette issues, RFCs, graphics, wallpapers, sounds, etc.) http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200112/msg00023.html If it's not *Software* then either, 1) We must treat it as such, or; 2) We have no mandate to deal with it at all. Wow, look at that. December 2001. I wonder if people have talked about these issues while you weren't paying attention? If you take Clause 1 of the Social Contract to mean that all software in Debian is free, it makes a lot of sense to me, and does not itself remove the moral requirement that documentation and other files are free as well. Everything we possibly can ensure to be Free in Debian must be Free. That means everything except legal notices (copyright notices, license terms, warranty disclaimers, and the like). We could do without that stuff as well, except we'd either expose ourselves to legal liability, or be left only with public domain materials. Either would mean there wouldn't be a Debian Project for much longer. I guess at this point you can, if you like, argue that losing the GNU Emacs Manual, with its inseparable GNU Manifesto, would deal the Project an equally fatal blow. Not that I see that this whole discussion bears any relevance to the DFSG/GFDL discussion. It's a discussion of the Social Contract, for which the correct forum is debian-project. This is not a technical discussion. Please stop grandstanding on debian-devel. -- G. Branden Robinson|It was a typical net.exercise -- a Debian GNU/Linux |screaming mob pounding on a greasy [EMAIL PROTECTED] |spot on the pavement, where used to http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |lie the carcass of a dead horse. pgpNdSWnIlF68.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
[Followups set.] On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 03:21:00AM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: I'd say that you have your priorities wrong. If we decide that documentation is not software then there is no reason to waste time to figure out if the GFDL is DFSG-free or not. It's not within debian-legal's purview to attempt to answer one question; it is to attempt to answer the other. If you want documentation to be subjected to a different standard than software (whatever those are), then set about drafting that different standard. On debian-project. So far no one has managed to do it.[1] [1] draft a standard, *or* discuss this on the correct mailing list -- G. Branden Robinson|Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, Debian GNU/Linux |and I have disposable income that [EMAIL PROTECTED] |I'll spend to find out how to get http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |people more of it. -- Penn Jillette pgpQjpKJ7JdDL.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Sat, Aug 23, 2003 at 02:00:49AM +0300, Richard Braakman wrote: The survey asks whether the GFDL _does_ satisfy the DFSG, not whether it needs to. Did you misspeak here? Yes. I wrote that reply in hot blood. I didn't write my survey thus. -- G. Branden Robinson| Yesterday upon the stair, Debian GNU/Linux | I met a man who wasn't there. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | He wasn't there again today, http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | I think he's from the CIA. pgpbtFGnvej4M.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Aug 22, Brian T. Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Additionally, whether the DFSG should apply to documentation in Debian is not relevant to the survey, which asks whether the GFDL complies with the DFSG: we can deal with the insanity of whether this software over here is or is not software later, but figuring out whether the GFDL is a DFSG-free licence for software is also important. That's what the survey's asking about. I'd say that you have your priorities wrong. If we decide that documentation is not software then there is no reason to waste time to figure out if the GFDL is DFSG-free or not. Of course there is: there is source code licensed under the GFDL in several Debian packages. In order to not have to do surgery on the GNU Emacs and GCC packages, the GFDL will have to be found DFSG-free anyway. -Brian
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Sun, Aug 24, 2003 at 02:25:51PM -0400, Brian T. Sniffen wrote: Marco d'Itri [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Aug 22, Brian T. Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Additionally, whether the DFSG should apply to documentation in Debian is not relevant to the survey, which asks whether the GFDL complies with the DFSG: we can deal with the insanity of whether this software over here is or is not software later, but figuring out whether the GFDL is a DFSG-free licence for software is also important. That's what the survey's asking about. I'd say that you have your priorities wrong. If we decide that documentation is not software then there is no reason to waste time to figure out if the GFDL is DFSG-free or not. Of course there is: there is source code licensed under the GFDL in several Debian packages. In order to not have to do surgery on the GNU Emacs and GCC packages, the GFDL will have to be found DFSG-free anyway. -Brian Pardon? I seriously hope that you're being sarcastic, because trying to bend over backwards and deliberately trying to misinterpret the DFSG just to get accept certain software is just hipocrisy. Yes, gcc would be nearly impossible to replace, but reasonably one can assume that the parts of it that are licensed under the GFDL are small enough that they are replacable, either by using earlier versions of those files and doing a lot of work on our own to redo the rest, or by rewriting them from scratch. As for GNU Emacs, the situation is less serious, since it's an editor, not a build-essential package. I am pretty sure the same thing can be done here, though. And if its manual is licensed under the GFDL, we'll simply have to make due without the manual, sad but true. Or have the manual in non-free, whatever feels is most appropriate (let's not start a discussion about removing non-free now, shall we?) Regards: David Weinehall -- /) David Weinehall [EMAIL PROTECTED] /) Northern lights wander (\ // Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel // Dance across the winter sky // \) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/(/ Full colour fire (/
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
What I'm referring to is the excerpts of C and E-Lisp source in those manuals. They're clearly both documentation and software, even if you don't believe that text can be both documentation and software. I don't believe even the non-optional parts of the GFDL can be found DFSG-free (as a software license), so something's going to have to change. -Brian
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 04:43:03PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: But do not attempt to subvert [the Social Contract and DFSG] by attempting to persuade people that clause 1 of the Social Contract says things it obviously does not. If you take Clause 1 of the Social Contract to literally mean that Debian contains nothing save software that is free, then that clause has never been true since it was introduced, since we have always contained many non-software items (documentation, bibles, Linux Gazette issues, RFCs, graphics, wallpapers, sounds, etc.) But typically those files have had the same freedoms that software has in Debian. In cases where they don't, RC bugs have been filed and stinks raised. [IE, for RFC's, and GFDL'ed documentation.] I don't really see -legal and/or ftpmaster doing much else than conservatively interpreting and acting upon the Social Contract and the DFSG. Let's not pretend that there's suddenly some infinite amount of conservative morality in starting to interpret the old documents differently from how they were interpreted when all this Evil and Wrong(tm) non-free documentation came into Debian. Striving for non-restricted documentation is a fine thing to do, but the present situation is simply not that black and white. All those RC bugs are still not closed for a reason. -- 2. That which causes joy or happiness.
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Thu, 2003-08-21 at 11:18, Jérôme Marant wrote: No, no, no! You don't get it. There may be a majority among the debian-legal zealots, but we need a consensus among Debian as a whole (which means voting of course). mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) http://lists.debian.org/debian-newmaint-discuss/2000/debian-newmaint-discuss-29/msg00086.html Jerome demonstrated a clear understanding of the Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Perhaps you would care to re-read the Social Contract and DFSG? Your understanding seems to have wavered. Dear Scott, Thanks for feeding the troll ! I have a clear understanding of the DFSG but it hasn't been written anywere that documentation is software. Nobody managed to convince me after many discussions on debian-legal. I tend to agree with John Goerzen, see Inconsistencies in our approach thread. Branden's survey is misleading and assumes that documentation is software. It is unfair and doesn't count. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:18:10PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) Thanks for excusing yourself from the discussion thus. Where has you sense of humour gone? More seriously, I do not consider that documentation is software and this is the reason why I don't know how to reply to you survey: is this another way to exclude people from discussions? I cannot imagine it wasn't deliberate. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Andreas Metzler [EMAIL PROTECTED]: ROTFL. Am I the only one who interpreted this as a joke? Humpf, as even Branden sent a sincere follow-up I think I am missing something important. Perhaps the word cabal was missing? Throwing in some darn might have helped, too. Jérôme, please use darn cabal of debian-legal zealots next time. cu and- triple reading the original mail, stil smiling -reas Ah! There is at least someone in this project with some sense of humour. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 09:58:30AM +0200, J?r?me Marant wrote: JrmM Branden's survey is misleading and assumes that documentation is JrmM software. It is unfair and doesn't count. Hey, Branden, how about another survey, about whether documentation is software or not, and whether documentation is subject to DFSG, or not? Just to kill all those darn trolls once and for all? ;-) For me, this was clear even before Bruce Perens replied to debian-legal about his understanding of this matter. -- Dmitry Borodaenko
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 02:28:52AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote: Jérôme, please use darn cabal of debian-legal zealots next time. cu and- triple reading the original mail, stil smiling -reas And don't forget to call them licensing geeks! Richard Braakman
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 10:17:04 +0200, Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Quoting Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:18:10PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) Thanks for excusing yourself from the discussion thus. Where has you sense of humour gone? Since when has insulting tour opponent in debate and appending the insult with a smiley orjust kidding been a hallmark of humour, or even acceptable in civilized discourse? At the risk of invoking godwins law, if I accused you, surrounded by smilies, of being a member of a certain German political party from the early-to-mid part of the last century, or of being a pedophile, you'll be rolling in aisle with laughter? More seriously, I do not consider that documentation is software and this is the reason why I don't know how to reply to you survey: is this another way to exclude people from discussions? I cannot imagine it wasn't deliberate. So I take it you can't understand English? The 4 rth option (none of the statements above express what I think) somehow passed you by? And if you do not consider documentation to be distinct from software, you should be able to adress the issues I raised in http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00983.html and the other issue also: http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00452.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00767.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00850.html http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg00983.html manoj -- Most non-Catholics know that the Catholic schools are rendering a greater service to our nation than the public schools in which subversive textbooks have been used, in which Communist-minded teachers have taught, and from whose classrooms Christ and even God Himself are barred. from Our Sunday Visitor, an American-Catholic newspaper, 1949 Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Richard Braakman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 02:28:52AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote: Jérôme, please use darn cabal of debian-legal zealots next time. cu and- triple reading the original mail, stil smiling -reas And don't forget to call them licensing geeks! Do you think such an expression would provoke the same emotional response? ;-) -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 04:53:30PM +0200, J?r?me Marant wrote: Quoting Richard Braakman [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 02:28:52AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote: J?r?me, please use darn cabal of debian-legal zealots next time. cu and- triple reading the original mail, stil smiling -reas And don't forget to call them licensing geeks! Do you think such an expression would provoke the same emotional response? ;-) What is this lunatic blabbering about? ? Yes, I think it would. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -- | pgpQzJ6u1Cq5r.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
[Followups set.] On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 09:58:30AM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: Branden's survey is misleading and assumes that documentation is software. It is unfair and doesn't count. No, my survey is narrowly scoped. It is not the job of the debian-legal mailing list, as I understand it, to distinguish between documentation and software for the rest of the Project, nor -- more to the point -- to manufacture and apply Debian Free Documentation Guidelines when none have been proposed or ratified by the Project. The role of the debian-legal mailing list is to formulate, as best it can, recommendations on the legal issues to the rest of the Project, and have discussions of legal issues relevant to Debian that are more germane on that list than any other. The Social Contract[1] says that Debian will remain 100% Free Software, and that the Debian Free Software Guidelines shall be a tool that we use to for determining whether something in the Debian distribution is Free Software or not. Debian Developers have pledged to act to uphold the Social Contract and DFSG. If you want to change them, you know the process. But do not attempt to subvert them by attempting to persuade people that clause 1 of the Social Contract says things it obviously does not. Whether documentation is software, whether we need fewer freedoms for documentation than we do for software, and whether and how we shall amend the Debian Social Contract are questions for debian-project or debian-vote, not debian-legal. [1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract -- G. Branden Robinson|It is the responsibility of Debian GNU/Linux |intellectuals to tell the truth and [EMAIL PROTECTED] |expose lies. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Noam Chomsky pgpHTNdfoMgKu.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 01:14:40PM +0300, Dmitry Borodaenko wrote: Hey, Branden, how about another survey, about whether documentation is software or not, I'm not interested in circulating such a survey. Someone else may wish to, but debian-legal is not an appropriate list for it -- I recommend debian-project instead. and whether documentation is subject to DFSG, or not? According to clause 1 of the Debian Social Contract[1], everything (100%) in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution is and must remain Free Software, and we are compelled to use the Debian Free Software Guidelines to evaluate whether the things in the Debian GNU/Linux distribution are Free Software or not. Just to kill all those darn trolls once and for all? ;-) That will never happen. There will always be people willing to compromise the freedoms of their fellow developers and our users so that they can enjoy having a particular set of bits in our distribution. [1] http://www.debian.org/social_contract -- G. Branden Robinson|Of two competing theories or Debian GNU/Linux |explanations, all other things [EMAIL PROTECTED] |being equal, the simpler one is to http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |be preferred. -- Occam's Razor pgpUc7E9T59BX.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 10:17:04AM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: Quoting Branden Robinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:18:10PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) Thanks for excusing yourself from the discussion thus. Where has you sense of humour gone? Not to a land where accusations of bigotry are recognized as humor. More seriously, I do not consider that documentation is software and this is the reason why I don't know how to reply to you survey: I guess you can select the 4th option in Part 1. If none of the first 3 options reasonably approximate your opinion, then you should have no trouble marking option 4. is this another way to exclude people from discussions? No. It's a way to assess whether the silent majority arguments raised by a few loud people on debian-legal, claiming that most people don't really believe that the GNU FDL needs to satisfy the DFSG, are the real consensus view. Judging by the survey results so far, that claim would appear to be signfificantly mistaken. I cannot imagine it wasn't deliberate. The message was written and sent deliberately; I cannot help you with regard to what you're reading between the lines. -- G. Branden Robinson|I must confess to being surprised Debian GNU/Linux |by the magnitude of incompatibility [EMAIL PROTECTED] |with such a minor version bump. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |-- Manoj Srivastava pgpzszHoKhQ7F.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: More seriously, I do not consider that documentation is software and this is the reason why I don't know how to reply to you survey: is this another way to exclude people from discussions? I cannot imagine it wasn't deliberate. So I take it you can't understand English? The 4 rth option (none of the statements above express what I think) somehow passed you by? Additionally, whether the DFSG should apply to documentation in Debian is not relevant to the survey, which asks whether the GFDL complies with the DFSG: we can deal with the insanity of whether this software over here is or is not software later, but figuring out whether the GFDL is a DFSG-free licence for software is also important. That's what the survey's asking about. -Brian -- Brian T. Sniffen[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.evenmere.org/~bts/
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 12:06:39PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 09:58:30AM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: Branden's survey is misleading and assumes that documentation is software. It is unfair and doesn't count. No, my survey is narrowly scoped. The Social Contract[1] says that Debian will remain 100% Free Software, and that the Debian Free Software Guidelines shall be a tool that we use to for determining whether something in the Debian distribution is Free Software or not. Debian Developers have pledged to The corrolary is that 0% of Debian is non-free software. Documentation is not software at all. The mere fact that the social contract says that 100% of Debian is Free Software does not magically make everything that is part of Debian software. Just saying something is so is begging the question, and I am getting tired of that game. act to uphold the Social Contract and DFSG. If you want to change them, you know the process. But do not attempt to subvert them by attempting to persuade people that clause 1 of the Social Contract says things it obviously does not. If you take Clause 1 of the Social Contract to literally mean that Debian contains nothing save software that is free, then that clause has never been true since it was introduced, since we have always contained many non-software items (documentation, bibles, Linux Gazette issues, RFCs, graphics, wallpapers, sounds, etc.) If you take Clause 1 of the Social Contract to mean that all software in Debian is free, it makes a lot of sense to me, and does not itself remove the moral requirement that documentation and other files are free as well. Not that I see that this whole discussion bears any relevance to the DFSG/GFDL discussion.
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 12:19:57PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: No. It's a way to assess whether the silent majority arguments raised by a few loud people on debian-legal, claiming that most people don't really believe that the GNU FDL needs to satisfy the DFSG, are the real consensus view. ??? The survey asks whether the GFDL _does_ satisfy the DFSG, not whether it needs to. Did you misspeak here? Richard Braakman
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, John Goerzen wrote: The corrolary is that 0% of Debian is non-free software. Documentation is not software at all. Ah. So we're 97% Free Software, 3% Documentation, and 0% Non-Free Software.[1] Thanks for clearing that up. If you take Clause 1 of the Social Contract to literally mean that Debian contains nothing save software that is free, then that clause has never been true since it was introduced, since we have always contained many non-software items (documentation, bibles, Linux Gazette issues, RFCs, graphics, wallpapers, sounds, etc.) But typically those files have had the same freedoms that software has in Debian. In cases where they don't, RC bugs have been filed and stinks raised. [IE, for RFC's, and GFDL'ed documentation.] Regardless, if Debian wants to include documentation that is not free under the DFSG, it pretty much has to do so via GR. Why don't you draft and propose a GR on -project that modifies the Social Contract and provides a DFDG or similar to remove this ambiguity? Until that point, I don't really see -legal and/or ftpmaster doing much else than conservatively interpreting and acting upon the Social Contract and the DFSG. Don Armstrong 1: Obviously arbitrary percentages -- People selling drug paraphernalia ... are as much a part of drug trafficking as silencers are a part of criminal homicide. -- John Brown, DEA Chief http://www.donarmstrong.com http://www.anylevel.com http://rzlab.ucr.edu pgpm5QUbyrvW1.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Aug 22, Brian T. Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Additionally, whether the DFSG should apply to documentation in Debian is not relevant to the survey, which asks whether the GFDL complies with the DFSG: we can deal with the insanity of whether this software over here is or is not software later, but figuring out whether the GFDL is a DFSG-free licence for software is also important. That's what the survey's asking about. I'd say that you have your priorities wrong. If we decide that documentation is not software then there is no reason to waste time to figure out if the GFDL is DFSG-free or not. -- ciao, | Marco | [1421 le2huYnaegCMI]
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Peter S Galbraith [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED]: No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-) Except it isn't :-) According to you :-) According to debian-legal consensus. Is there any? John's message proves that there isn't any yet, IMO. -- Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Jrme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Quoting Peter S Galbraith [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Jrme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Quoting Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-)
Except it isn't :-)
According to you :-)
According to debian-legal consensus.
Is there any? John's message proves that there isn't any yet, IMO.
consensus
n : agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief
[syn: {general agreement}]
unanimity
n : everyone being of one mind
A world of difference.
--
ilmari
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Jamin W. Collins [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This has been covered to death already. There are a sufficient number of respondents that see it as non-free. The RM's recent post indicates that possibly the FSF has even come around to the idea that their license is less than Free. Can we please move along now? Just don't read the thread. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
consensus
n : agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief
[syn: {general agreement}]
unanimity
n : everyone being of one mind
A world of difference.
No, no, no! You don't get it. There may be a majority among the
debian-legal zealots, but we need a consensus among Debian as a
whole (which means voting of course).
We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-)
--
Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) Sorry, but that insult doesn't put a winksmiley on my face. Please don't try to start a useless flamewar. They break out so easily on their own. There is no need to discuss this matter here; it has already been thoroughly discussed in debian-legal and that is the best place to continue the discussion if you really can't let the subject drop. -- Thomas Hood
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Jérôme Marant dijo [Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:18:10PM +0200]:
consensus
n : agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief
[syn: {general agreement}]
unanimity
n : everyone being of one mind
A world of difference.
No, no, no! You don't get it. There may be a majority among the
debian-legal zealots, but we need a consensus among Debian as a
whole (which means voting of course).
We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-)
Well... If you really disagree with the 'bigots' on this, please join
debian-legal and join the opposition. I do think that most of us
non-'bigots' will agree with the consensus reached in debian-devel - Me
not joining that list means I don't have all the background (and, yes,
the interest) to debate their decision - and they are mostly people who
most of us hold in quite a nice position.
Now, why am I insisting in quoting the 'bigots'? Because they care.
Because being involved in all those convoluted discussions in our
behalf, in subjects we all care about but don't want to fuss over too
much makes them respectable people in my eyes.
Greetings,
--
Gunnar Wolf - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - (+52-55)5630-9700 ext. 1366
PGP key 1024D/8BB527AF 2001-10-23
Fingerprint: 0C79 D2D1 2C4E 9CE4 5973 F800 D80E F35A 8BB5 27AF
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 12:18:10PM +0200, Jérôme Marant wrote: We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) Thanks for excusing yourself from the discussion thus. -- G. Branden Robinson| Software engineering: that part of Debian GNU/Linux | computer science which is too [EMAIL PROTECTED] | difficult for the computer http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | scientist. pgpPlwwt5ARnc.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Thu, 2003-08-21 at 11:18, Jrme Marant wrote: No, no, no! You don't get it. There may be a majority among the debian-legal zealots, but we need a consensus among Debian as a whole (which means voting of course). mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) http://lists.debian.org/debian-newmaint-discuss/2000/debian-newmaint-discuss-29/msg00086.html Jerome demonstrated a clear understanding of the Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Perhaps you would care to re-read the Social Contract and DFSG? Your understanding seems to have wavered. Scott -- Have you ever, ever felt like this? Had strange things happen? Are you going round the twist? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Jérôme Marant said:
Quoting Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
consensus
n : agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief
[syn: {general agreement}]
unanimity
n : everyone being of one mind
A world of difference.
No, no, no! You don't get it. There may be a majority among the
debian-legal zealots, but we need a consensus among Debian as a
whole (which means voting of course).
We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-)
Oh, get stuffed. Of the people who are interested enough in matters legal
to subscribe to -legal, it's becoming fairly obvious (from Branden's
survey posted earlier today and the subsequent replies) that the consensus
is that the GFDL is either totally rooted or at least partially rooted,
DFSG-wise.
Insisting on a vote, hoping that the apathetic masses will support you
when those who care don't, strikes me as, at best, hopelessly optimistic,
and, at worst, downright delusional.
Ever heard the phrase the lurkers support me in e-mail from the loser in
an argument? Are you seeing any analogies?
- Matt
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Le jeu 21/08/2003 à 09:33, Jérôme Marant a écrit : According to debian-legal consensus. Is there any? John's message proves that there isn't any yet, IMO. I have trouble with the concept of another nonono gfdl is free because there is free in the acronym message affecting the consensus. -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message =?ISO-8859-1?Q?num=E9riquement?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_sign=E9e?=
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Quoting Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
consensus
n : agreement of the majority in sentiment or belief
[syn: {general agreement}]
unanimity
n : everyone being of one mind
A world of difference.
No, no, no! You don't get it. There may be a majority among the
debian-legal zealots, but we need a consensus among Debian as a
whole (which means voting of course).
We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-)
ROTFL.
Am I the only one who interpreted this as a joke? Humpf, as even
Branden sent a sincere follow-up I think I am missing something
important. Perhaps the word cabal was missing? Throwing in some
darn might have helped, too.
Jérôme, please use darn cabal of debian-legal zealots next time.
cu and- triple reading the original mail, stil smiling -reas
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Jerome demonstrated a clear understanding of the Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Perhaps you would care to re-read the Social Contract and DFSG? Your understanding seems to have wavered. It's off to the re-education camps with him, then! [Do you realize how creepy what you just said sounds?] -Miles -- Fast, small, soon; pick any 2.
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 04:28:07PM +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote: On Thu, 2003-08-21 at 11:18, Jérôme Marant wrote: We musn't let the bigots decide for us! ;-) http://lists.debian.org/debian-newmaint-discuss/2000/debian-newmaint-discuss-29/msg00086.html Jerome demonstrated a clear understanding of the Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Perhaps you would care to re-read the Social Contract and DFSG? Your understanding seems to have wavered. Easy, captain. I share Miles Bader's reading of the tone of your message, and I share his concern. Ideologies exist to serve people, not the other way around. The utility of an ideology is that it reinforces purposeful and goal-oriented behavior. It is contrary to my understanding of the Debian Project for us to attempt to enforce an orthodoxy, or punish heresy, with respect to the *opinions* that our Developers share with each other. What we *do* expect is an adherence to a consensus-based understanding of the Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines when it comes to our work products, such as the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. Thus, while I would expect some form of disciplinary action to be taken against a developer who deliberately inserted non-free software into main repeatedly, I do not think it is wise for us to attempt to suppress the expression of mere *opinions*, even those that may be wildly divergent from the ideals of the Social Contract and DFSG. It is only through a free, unfettered discussion process that we will be able to ensure that our statements of principle remain living, relevant documents. Per our Constitution, we do have a process for amending them[1], so organizationally we need not fear losing the ability to adapt to our environment. In short, argue with Jérôme all you want, but please don't accuse him of thought crimes. [1] certain assertions on debian-vote a couple of years ago aside -- G. Branden Robinson| If you're handsome, it's flirting. Debian GNU/Linux | If you're a troll, it's sexual [EMAIL PROTECTED] | harassment. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- George Carlin pgpE7zfU1jL1S.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Fri, 2003-08-22 at 03:02, Miles Bader wrote: Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Jerome demonstrated a clear understanding of the Social Contract and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Perhaps you would care to re-read the Social Contract and DFSG? Your understanding seems to have wavered. It's off to the re-education camps with him, then! [Do you realize how creepy what you just said sounds?] Bah, my X-Tongue-In-Cheek header fell off again :o) Scott -- Have you ever, ever felt like this? Had strange things happen? Are you going round the twist? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Josselin Mouette [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Le mar 19/08/2003 à 23:33, Mike Hommey a écrit : Ok, let's google a bit, and shazaam ! http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/nvidia-glx_1.0.4349-1_i386.deb Oh ! non-free software ! Thanks Richard for keeping me laughing. Bah, if RMS really didn't like non-free software, he would give up with that FDL stuff... No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-) -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Great, the debian-legal discussions moved to debian-devel. Quoting Peter S Galbraith [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Now consider that most or all of the FSF documentation for their GPL'ed software is released under the GFDL. The licenses are incompatible so someone who forks a project cannot cut and paste text between the manual and the software that it documents. Why don't they use the GPL for the docs? What do they gain? They gain an invariant section about free software; very ironic isn't it. Pasting a piece of manual in a program doesn't magically turn the documentation into a program; so this is not about mixing too different codes. Just like, inserting a piece of code into a manual doesn't turn the piece of code into documentation where the documentation license applies. See John Goerzen's message Inconsistencies in our approach in debian-legal. -- Jérôme Marant
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Wed, 2003-08-20 at 08:35, Jrme Marant wrote: Quoting Josselin Mouette [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Le mar 19/08/2003 23:33, Mike Hommey a crit : Ok, let's google a bit, and shazaam ! http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/nvidia-glx_1.0.4349-1_i386.deb Oh ! non-free software ! Thanks Richard for keeping me laughing. Bah, if RMS really didn't like non-free software, he would give up with that FDL stuff... No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-) Except it isn't :-) Scott -- Have you ever, ever felt like this? Had strange things happen? Are you going round the twist? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Quoting Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED]: No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-) Except it isn't :-) According to you :-) -- Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Non-free software on linex [was Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003]
On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 11:33:12PM +0200, Mike Hommey wrote: On Tuesday 19 August 2003 22:12, Martin Schulze wrote: [...] [2]Libranet 2.8, which is based on Debian. Richard Stallman [3]said he now prefers the [4]GNU/LinEx distribution over Debian because of non-free software on our FTP servers. [...] Let me see... I go to the linex home page. What do i see ? GNU/LinEx y tarjetas NVIDIA. Oh well, seems interesting, so I go in the page and see that they seem to provide some package for nvidia drivers. Maybe newer drivers (their distro is based on woody, so...) Ok, let's google a bit, and shazaam ! http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/nvidia-glx_1.0.4349-1_i386.deb Oh ! non-free software ! Thanks Richard for keeping me laughing. There's more of it: http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/ lists acroread_4.05-3, mplayer_0.90pre5-3 flashplugin-nonfree_6.0.79-1, hsflinmodem-linex_0.5.2-1 -- Hans Ekbrand pgp03pbgkbR6p.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 05:30:39PM +0200, J?r?me Marant wrote: Quoting Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED]: No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-) Except it isn't :-) According to you :-) This has been covered to death already. There are a sufficient number of respondents that see it as non-free. The RM's recent post indicates that possibly the FSF has even come around to the idea that their license is less than Free. Can we please move along now? -- Jamin W. Collins Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Jérôme Marant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Quoting Scott James Remnant [EMAIL PROTECTED]: No he wouldn't. FDL is about free documentation. :-) Except it isn't :-) According to you :-) According to debian-legal consensus.
Re: Non-free software on linex [was Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003]
On Wednesday 20 August 2003 20:13, Hans Ekbrand wrote: There's more of it: http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/ lists acroread_4.05-3, mplayer_0.90pre5-3 flashplugin-nonfree_6.0.79-1, hsflinmodem-linex_0.5.2-1 ... and j2re, yes, I saw that afterwards... Some are quite badly packaged, by the way... Mike
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Le mar 19/08/2003 à 23:33, Mike Hommey a écrit : Ok, let's google a bit, and shazaam ! http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/nvidia-glx_1.0.4349-1_i386.deb Oh ! non-free software ! Thanks Richard for keeping me laughing. Bah, if RMS really didn't like non-free software, he would give up with that FDL stuff... -- .''`. Josselin Mouette/\./\ : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] `. `'[EMAIL PROTECTED] `- Debian GNU/Linux -- The power of freedom signature.asc Description: Ceci est une partie de message =?ISO-8859-1?Q?num=E9riquement?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?_sign=E9e?=
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Wednesday 20 August 2003 00:34, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mar 19/08/2003 à 23:33, Mike Hommey a écrit : Ok, let's google a bit, and shazaam ! http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/nvidia-glx_1.0.4349-1_i38 6.deb Oh ! non-free software ! Thanks Richard for keeping me laughing. Bah, if RMS really didn't like non-free software, he would give up with that FDL stuff... Did he ever say he didn't like non-free _documentation_ ? Mike
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Wed, 2003-08-20 at 00:43, Mike Hommey wrote: On Wednesday 20 August 2003 00:34, Josselin Mouette wrote: Le mar 19/08/2003 23:33, Mike Hommey a crit : Ok, let's google a bit, and shazaam ! http://www.linex.org/sources/linex/debian/linex/nvidia-glx_1.0.4349-1_i38 6.deb Oh ! non-free software ! Thanks Richard for keeping me laughing. Bah, if RMS really didn't like non-free software, he would give up with that FDL stuff... Did he ever say he didn't like non-free _documentation_ ? The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the software--it is the lack of good free manuals that we can include in our systems. Documentation is an essential part of any software package; when an important free software package does not come with a good free manual, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today. Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price. The criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for free software: it is a matter of giving all users certain freedoms. Redistribution (including commercial sale) must be permitted, on-line and on paper, so that the manual can accompany every copy of the program. Permission for modification is crucial too. - Richard Stallman, 1998 Scott -- Have you ever, ever felt like this? Had strange things happen? Are you going round the twist? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
On Wednesday 20 August 2003 02:16, Scott James Remnant wrote: The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the software--it is the lack of good free manuals that we can include in our systems. Documentation is an essential part of any software package; when an important free software package does not come with a good free manual, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today. Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price. The criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for free software: it is a matter of giving all users certain freedoms. Redistribution (including commercial sale) must be permitted, on-line and on paper, so that the manual can accompany every copy of the program. Permission for modification is crucial too. - Richard Stallman, 1998 Fantastic, GFDL doesn't even match his own words... Mike PS: BTW, he said free documentation was important, not that non-free documentation was evil ;)
Re: Debian Weekly News - August 19th, 2003
Mike Hommey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wednesday 20 August 2003 02:16, Scott James Remnant wrote: The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the software--it is the lack of good free manuals that we can include in our systems. Documentation is an essential part of any software package; when an important free software package does not come with a good free manual, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today. Free documentation, like free software, is a matter of freedom, not price. The criterion for a free manual is pretty much the same as for free software: it is a matter of giving all users certain freedoms. Redistribution (including commercial sale) must be permitted, on-line and on paper, so that the manual can accompany every copy of the program. Permission for modification is crucial too. - Richard Stallman, 1998 Fantastic, GFDL doesn't even match his own words... Mike PS: BTW, he said free documentation was important, not that non-free documentation was evil ;) He pretty much does say that in this article. He also waffles about the importance of being able to modify `technical' parts of the manual. You can find it here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.html What bugs me is the following contradiction with their current practice: But there is a particular reason why the freedom to modify is crucial for documentation for free software. When people exercise their right to modify the software, and add or change its features, if they are conscientious they will change the manual too--so they can provide accurate and usable documentation with the modified program. A manual which forbids programmers to be conscientious and finish the job, or more precisely requires them to write a new manual from scratch if they change the program, does not fill our community's needs. Now consider that most or all of the FSF documentation for their GPL'ed software is released under the GFDL. The licenses are incompatible so someone who forks a project cannot cut and paste text between the manual and the software that it documents. Why don't they use the GPL for the docs? What do they gain? They gain an invariant section about free software; very ironic isn't it. Peter
