Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
On Mon, 2003-04-21 at 02:08, Hans Reiser wrote: I find it unspeakably ingrateful to Stallman that some of you begrudge him his right to express his (discomforting to some) views to all who use his software, and to ensure that they are not removed by those suits who are discomforted. Our current activities on the GFDL involve writing up a list of objections to the license, to present to the FSF. We are doing this before removing the software from Debian. I think this shows great respect for Mr. Stallman and the FSF that we are spending a fair amount of time forming a consensus about what we feel needs changing in the GFDL, writing that down clearly, and sending it to him, all while ignoring our own principles, spelled out in the DFSG, in the meantime. It has nothing to do with wanting to remove the GNU Manifesto from the EMACS manual; Debian, as a whole, certainly has no hatred of RMS or his views. We even have a 'vrms' package in the distro. -legal just has a disagreement with him over some details of the GFDL. Consider that an Evil Company, say, starting with the letter 'M', could apparently make its changes to the documentation of a GFDL-licensed document near-proprietary by adding invariant sections and cover texts that are unconscionable to the original author. Something like an invariant section on how the original author's coding style resembles the intelligence of the infamous paper clip. And a cover text that Linux Sucks. As far as I am concerned, I have no desire to have ReiserFS distributed for free by anyone who removes the GNU manifesto or similar expressions from Stallman's work (or my own) and redistributes it. It is simply a matter of respect that is due the author. That the list of credits was completely removed from reiserfsprogs was surely a mistake. I'm sure Ed will, or already has, fixed it, given that Debian may continue to distribute reiserfsprogs. It should of been included in /usr/share/doc. However, the 20+ lines of credits on every run of mkreiserfs was certainly removed on purpose and needed to be. There are a lot of 24-line terminals, not all with scroll back, and that makes a 20+ line message a major problem. Especially since the time the admin is running it is probably during major system maintainance or recovery, when stress is quite high, and where being able to see what he has done already is quite important. Especially since the credit message, being last would cause the important technical messages, warnings, errors, etc. to scroll off screen. Should the remove have been done in a different way? Quote possibly. An alternative that springs to mind would be adding a --credits flag, and a short (one-line) message to inform the user of that option. I guess the basic question now is, does the license reiserfsprogs is distributed under allow the above change? signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
Anthony DeRobertis wrote: Consider that an Evil Company, say, starting with the letter 'M', could apparently make its changes to the documentation of a GFDL-licensed document near-proprietary by adding invariant sections and cover texts that are unconscionable to the original author. Something like an invariant section on how the original author's coding style resembles the intelligence of the infamous paper clip. And a cover text that Linux Sucks. Why is this a problem? Seems to me that it is their right to do so, if they make a contribution that nobody else wants to be without, they have earned the moral right to insult the original author. -- Hans
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 11:00, Hans Reiser wrote: Anthony DeRobertis wrote: [...] could apparently make its changes to the documentation of a GFDL-licensed document near-proprietary by adding invariant sections and cover texts that are unconscionable to the original author. [...] (Note: I gave a specific example that involved insulting the original author of the software) Why is this a problem? [...] At least too me, it seems to defeat the purpose of copyleft. If I didn't mind if the document was made such that I couldn't use the modifications, I would license it under a much simpler, much more direct license like the MIT X11 one. Or just disclaim copyright interest in it (i.e., put it in the public domain). If I were to use the GFDL, my choices would be to not be able to use the changes (so much for copyleft) or start an invariant section war, where I add an invariant rebuttal.
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
Op wo 23-04-2003, om 17:00 schreef Hans Reiser: Anthony DeRobertis wrote: Consider that an Evil Company, say, starting with the letter 'M', could apparently make its changes to the documentation of a GFDL-licensed document near-proprietary by adding invariant sections and cover texts that are unconscionable to the original author. Something like an invariant section on how the original author's coding style resembles the intelligence of the infamous paper clip. And a cover text that Linux Sucks. Why is this a problem? Seems to me that it is their right to do so, if they make a contribution that nobody else wants to be without, they have earned the moral right to insult the original author. Well, it's your right to think so. But you have to understand that not everyone feels that way; the fact that the GFDL can potentially be abused into making the manual non-free *is* a problem. In fact, this whole argument started because 'someone' felt insulted. -- wouter at grep dot be An expert can usually spot the difference between a fake charge and a full one, but there are plenty of dead experts. -- National Geographic Channel, in a documentary about large African beasts. signature.asc Description: Dit berichtdeel is digitaal gesigneerd
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
Anthony DeRobertis wrote: On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 11:00, Hans Reiser wrote: Anthony DeRobertis wrote: [...] could apparently make its changes to the documentation of a GFDL-licensed document near-proprietary by adding invariant sections and cover texts that are unconscionable to the original author. [...] (Note: I gave a specific example that involved insulting the original author of the software) Why is this a problem? [...] At least too me, it seems to defeat the purpose of copyleft. If I didn't mind if the document was made such that I couldn't use the modifications, I would license it under a much simpler, much more direct license like the MIT X11 one. Or just disclaim copyright interest in it (i.e., put it in the public domain). If I were to use the GFDL, my choices would be to not be able to use the changes (so much for copyleft) or start an invariant section war, where I add an invariant rebuttal. That would give you a lot of incentive to write code that others would want to keep. Sounds good to me.;-) You have a choice of incentives: 1) money 2) ego 3) none. You are choosing 3). I know you won't choose 1). I suggest you choose 2), for all the reasons articulated in the Cathedral and the Bazaar. If you are feeling sympathetic you might consider that persons like me are concerned that vendors will strip all information about who wrote ReiserFS out except for copyright notices that none of their users will see, slap their brand identity onto it, and ship, depriving me of all credit for my work on their product. I say this, because that is exactly what slimy marketeers at startups do, and they do it a lot. Look at how many companies ripped off squid. -- Hans
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 22:46:24 +0400 Hans Reiser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: persons like me are concerned that vendors will strip all information about who wrote ReiserFS out except for copyright notices that none of their users will see, slap their brand identity onto it, and ship, depriving me of all credit for my work on their product. We seem to have slalomed across from talking about documentation to about code, again. Ok. Whilst I'm not personally advocating taking and re-branding code (especially if its against upstream's wishes) the ripping off that you speak so vehemently against isn't quite so bad as it may appear. In fact, it can often be very advantageous to a project. One could argue that if the thief had been unable to re-brand the code, they never would have used it. If they had to have a prominent notice advertising We did not write this, Hans Reiser did (only 24 times as long) every time their application started, they wouldn't touch the code with a barge pole. Thus, the code is now in places where it wouldn't have been before. This means greater penetration, albeit by the back door. Depriving you of all credit is an exaggeration. There's always going to be some recognition gained. They cannot remove the copyright notice, as you say. And again, since the code would not have been used at all if large, blatant credits were a requirement, the alternative is zero recognition because they would have done something else instead. They might gain _more_ reputation from their immediate user-base than you, but you still gain. And the more clueful hacker types will be the ones who will read the copyright notices, anyway, and most probably come and seek you out on their own. Additionally, having taken the code and rebranded it, a prudent person is highly unlikely to want to go to the trouble of maintaining the codebase on their own. Even if they're being especially selfish and don't want to contribute anything back, they'll definitely file bug reports on any problems that they or their users find, because they'll want them to be fixed. Again, net gain through increased testing. Please note, I don't say that your view is invalid, merely that there is an alternative view that seems to be quite widely spread. The above involves sacrificing some very prominent visibility to the users of those that do accept the more onerous licensing terms, in the hope of garnering greater penetration, utilisation and development of the code in the long term. Look at how many companies ripped off squid. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, Squid have not changed their license to prevent this recurring in the future. I wonder why?
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
Andrew Saunders wrote: On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 22:46:24 +0400 Hans Reiser [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: One could argue that if the thief had been unable to re-brand the code, they never would have used it. If they had to have a prominent notice advertising We did not write this, Hans Reiser did (only 24 times as long) every time their application started, they wouldn't touch the code with a barge pole. Thus, the code is now in places where it wouldn't have been before. This means greater penetration, albeit by the back door. If they want to leave off the credits, they can pay me for the privilege, or live with only the credit they deserve for their work. People who can't live with my credits on work they sell to others should pay. Look at how many companies ripped off squid. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, Squid have not changed their license to prevent this recurring in the future. There is no need to change the license, the companies violated the GPL, they didn't just strip the credits. The need is to enforce the license, and nobody is bothering. UC Santa Cruz University lawyers are not very interested in earning their living. I reported it to them some time ago -- Hans
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 16:08, Hans Reiser wrote: I find it unspeakably ingrateful to Stallman that some of you begrudge him his right to express his (discomforting to some) views to all who use his software, and to ensure that they are not removed by those suits who are discomforted. As far as I am concerned, I have no desire to have ReiserFS distributed for free by anyone who removes the GNU manifesto or similar expressions from Stallman's work (or my own) and redistributes it. It is simply a matter of respect that is due the author. Hans, you are going way off-track here. No-one in the Debian project has any desire to deny correct attribution to the people who deserve it. However there are technical issues. When recovering a system you have a limited scroll-back buffer that you don't want to have needlessly overrun by such material. When you choose to discuss the matter politely with the right people then I am sure that you will be able to determine a suitable solution that gives appropriate credit where due in the minimum amount of screen space. If you find that it is impossible to reach an agreement then you can forward the relevant paragraphs of their messages where you believe that they are not being reasonable to the appropriate mailing lists and then we can determine who is correct and act accordingly. -- http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/ My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/ Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/postal/Postal SMTP/POP benchmark http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/ My home page
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
We are having a small debate about wheter a user has freedom to modify code of free software when it concerns where a long version of author sponsor list is displayed. It has also been speculated that GPL v3 will have a say on this. Could elaborate what will be in it? (The following message was first sent to RMS directly, but thankfully his old address bounced. There probably are others of you in the GNU project who can answer this as well.) (Hans Reiser wrote:) I look forward to the release of GPL V3 which will hopefully cover fair crediting of code as well as documentation, and stem this rising tide of plagiarism and political bowlderization by distros. I think nobody here has anything against keeping all the credits in documentation or trying to take the credit for ReiserFS tools. The problem now seems to be that: if the program outputs a long credits thanks list in a very uncomfortable place such as startup, can a free software license really *prohibit modifying the code* so that the listing is moved behind a switch, about menu item or such? IMHO, it is reasonable to demand that all credits must be easily accessible in derived works but not that a long list appears *before the program does anything useful* - it both hinders the usability of the program and severely restricts the freedom to modify the code. Hans: Would you consider it a breach of your license if your program is modified so that the long credits list is shown in some other place than in the original works? Must graphical frontends also parse the output and popup a message box or something containing the credits OR would you be happy if they are listed in the frontend's About box? RMS: Will GPL v3 take a new stance on this issue as has been speculated? - Jarno
Re: If Debian decides that the Gnu Free Doc License is not free then I will be honored to join Stallman and the FSF in the not free section of your distro
On Mon, Apr 21, 2003 at 10:08:57AM +0400, Hans Reiser wrote: I find it unspeakably ingrateful to Stallman that some of you begrudge him his right to express his (discomforting to some) views to all who use his software, and to ensure that they are not removed by those suits who are discomforted. As far as I am concerned, I have no desire to have ReiserFS distributed for free by anyone who removes the GNU manifesto or similar expressions from Stallman's work (or my own) and redistributes it. It is simply a matter of respect that is due the author. Thank you for making your position clear. If it is your intention that the license of your software be understood to prevent third parties from removing this advertising material from the output of the program, I'm sure that Debian will be more than willing to comply with your wishes by removing your non-free software from our distribution. I will be happy to work with the FSF in recruiting other software authors to this task of stemming plagiarism and political bowlderization by distros before it becomes a bigger problem than it is now. Get over yourself. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer pgpigv5ly9KNX.pgp Description: PGP signature
